It’s hard to believe that 2016 is already here. With a new year comes the pressure to make New Year’s resolutions. The problem with New Year’s resolutions is we usually make them about trivial matter, and not about the most important issues of life.  We try to accomplish these resolutions by will power alone.  The end result for most of us is by the end of February we run out of willpower.  Willpower will get us started, but it usually doesn’t last.

To make lasting changes in life you need more than willpower, you need God’s help.  I want us to briefly look at four important resolutions that you can make in your life that will be life-shaping resolutions.  If you will make these four resolutions and depend on God to help you, your life will radically improve.  Not just this next year but the rest of your life.  The rest of your life will become the best of your life.  These four resolutions will transform you.  They will make your life so much better if you’ll focus on these.  They come to us from the life of Moses.

What happens to you in life is not nearly as important as the choices you make.  We can’t control what’s going to happen to us in 2016.  But we can control how we respond to what happens to us.  We make our choices and then our choices make us.  Our character is the sum total of your choices.  So while you don’t control all the circumstances in your life, you do control your choices.  And these are far more important than circumstances.

In Hebrews 11:23-27, we have five verses on the life of Moses that explain the choices he made.  The first verse is about the choice his parents made when he was a baby.  Then the next four verses are about the choices that Moses made as an adult.  If you will make these same choices you will benefit dramatically for the rest of your life. 

In this passage there are four verbs.  It says by faith Moses refused, Moses chose, Moses regarded, and Moses persevered. When you understand the meaning of these four verbs and their implication for your life today, thousands of years later, it’ll change your life.

Let’s look at these four-life changing choices – resolutions that will improve your life more than anything else if you’ll do what Moses did.

1. Refuse to be Defined By Others – Verse 24

2. Choose short-term pain for long-term gain – Verse 25

3. Choose God’s values, not the world’s – Verse 26

4. Choose to live by faith rather than by fear – Verse 27

We all know that keeping resolutions is a whole lot harder than making them.  So if you want to be succeed at keeping these life-shaping resolutions I have two suggestions:

1. Get support – Find a person or a group that encourage you, pray for you and hold you accountable.

2. Ask and expect God to help.

Debbie and I want to wish all of you a very blessed and prosperous new year!

(You can hear the entirety of the message preached by Pastor Ralph on December 27th by going to sermons on our website)