Are any of you still contemplating a New Year’s Resolution or two? 

For 2025, America’s top four resolutions are to save more money, eat healthier, exercise more, and lose weight.

 

Some of us might have qualified our resolutions, as in, “I’ll diet during the week, but eat what I want on the weekends” or “I’ll give up cigarettes...and take up vaping.”

The first stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s “New Year’s Resolutions” perfectly captures this allowance for wiggle room:

I am resolved—throughout the year

To lay my vices on the shelf;

A godly, sober course to steer.  

And love my neighbours as myself—

Excepting always two or three

 Whom I detest as they hate me.

Of course, as the days go by, many of us will simply abandon our quest for self-improvement.  According to Baylor College, “studies show that 88 percent of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail them within two weeks.”

 

Opposite this trend of failure are two famous Americans who laid out and grappled with programs of personal improvement and who have some things to teach us when we make our own resolutions:   Jonathan Edwards & Ben Franklin

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), was a theologian and revivalist preacher during the Great Awakening who is best known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” often pondered our “poor human nature.”

 

Perhaps with these musings in mind, Edwards penned 70 resolutions as a young man of 18 and 19, not for New Year’s but as a lifelong guide to help him look to God in all things.

 

Edwards began with this command to himself:

“Remember to read these resolutions once a week.”   

 

We can follow this advice by posting our Jan. 1 resolutions in some prominent place, such as the refrigerator door or the bathroom mirror.  

 

WE should make resolutions easy and achievable and starting off by making small steps.” Keep them as specific as possible.

Edwards also recorded as his very first resolution the fundamental purpose for the inventory.  He wrote “Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God.”  Like him, we need to keep the main objective of our pledge in mind.

Ben Franklin (1706–1790), was a contemporary of Edwards, also famously devised a list of resolutions when young—he was 20 years old—but his program differed from that of the evangelist. He characteristically regarded this attempt at self-improvement as an experiment, not only striving to fulfill his vows but also standing aside and impartially observing his progress.

Short and concise, Franklin’s 13 virtues read like the maxims he later delivered in his annual “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” Of Justice, for example, he wrote: “

Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”

 

Franklin’s original list is made up of only 12 precepts, but when a Quaker friend urged him to work on his humility, Franklin added that virtue. Here, his directions to himself were the most succinct of all: “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

His comments regarding his struggles with humility reveal both his honesty and his humor. Of pride, he wrote, “Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

Like Franklin, we can set down our goals in clear, precise language, keep track of our progress, and evaluate our performance, looking for ways to improve.

 

It is also recommended to encourage a friend or a family member to join us on this trek.  If nothing else, we can ask them to ask us about our progress from time to time.

 

Both Edwards and Franklin included similar practical goals in their pledges for a lifetime, BUT their chief desire was for moral improvement.

Edwards sought sanctity and a closeness to God; Franklin wanted virtue.

 

Between the resolutions of these two men and our top four resolutions today, there are enormous differences. It is so much more important to have our heart attitudes and resulting behaviors right before God than losing 20 pounds.  Let’s challenge ourselves to take another look at our resolutions!  

 

Keeping the idea to keep it simple close at hand, we could begin by dusting off something as basic as the slogan of the Boy Scouts, “Do a good turn daily.”  That good turn can run from helping an older neighbor by taking their trash out to calling a friend going through hard times. 

On a personal level, my number one resolution this year is derived from I Tim 1:5:  Love better.

That resolution has been the cause of a lot of hard work and sacrifice for me as wells as failure, surrender and victory.  It definitely keeps me repentant.  It definitely keeps me humble.  And it frequently takes me to my knees.

In 1 Timothy 1:5, Paul lists three foundational attributes necessary to cultivate love: a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.
This quality of love should define our lives and motivate our actions above all else.

So, what does it mean to have a good conscience? The original Greek word that Paul uses refers to moral excellence. The “conscience” is the psychological faculty or internal capability that allows a person to distinguish between right and wrong. It is the inner judge written on the believer’s heart (Jeremiah 31:33) that accuses & convicts when we do wrong & approves when we do right  (Romans 2:14–15).
A person with a good conscience lives and behaves according to a God-given moral code of excellence; he or she possesses upright inner convictions and is able to discern between right and wrong. Paul charges Timothy, “Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.” (1 Timothy 1:19, NLT).

Warren Wiersbe compares a good conscience, or a clean conscience, “to a window that lets in the light of God’s truth.”  The more we study God’s Word, the more light we let in and the more sensitive we become to right and wrong.

Nowadays, we view having a good conscience and the ability to discern right from wrong mainly from an individual perspective. But in ancient times the word carried the weight of responsibility and answerability. The apostle Peter seems to have in mind this sense of accountability among peers when he instructs, “And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ” (1 Peter 3:15–16, NLT).

Summing this all up:  In all instances, as Franklin wrote in his notes to himself, “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”      

Don’t screw up, men!  And Love Better!  God Bless and Amen