New Year, New Me
“New year, new me.” As we ring in the 2020 year, this phrase yet again floods our news feeds. We cling to this phrase in hopes that something will change within us this year. We hope that circumstances around us will change. That this will be “the year.” The year that our dreams come true. The year that we finally shed the pounds. The year that we magically begin to own some sort of new self-confidence. The year that our family begins to care. The year that the singles hope to marry, the barren hope to conceive, and the unsatisfied hope that all of their desires will be fulfilled.
This begs the question: why do we continue to place our hope in something as temporary as a new year?
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says:
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
Each year comes to an end, and at that end we are back on social media proclaiming once again that the next year will be different. Paul reminds us that our gaze must not be fixed on something as temporary or tangible as a year. There is an eternal hope found in Christ that will never fade, never tarnish, and never end. Look there. Look to Jesus.
What does Paul say will happen as we look to Jesus? He says that “our inner self is being renewed day by day.” He also tells us that in the disappointments we face through the year and in our afflictions there is “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
This idea of “new year, new me” is not a new concept. It is actually a work of the Lord found in His Word. He repeatedly promises to His children that He will change us into His likeness day by day as we are looking to Him.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says:
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
You see, change does not come through a new year, but change comes through an all-powerful and mighty God
Ephesians 4:21-24 says:
“assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
If you have not put off the old self, you will remain the same old you year after year. Thus the old self must die before you can have a new self.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15, 17 says:
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised… Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
The love of Christ is displayed in the Gospel message. The perfect Son of God came and died for our imperfections. Not only did He take our place and our punishment for sin, but He then raised to new life.
This is your only hope for a “new year, new me.” Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, you can place your hope in Him. In response to His great love for you through the work of His Spirit, you can now live for Him, and He will transform you into a new creation.
I pray that we all have a “new year, new me” by looking to Jesus and abiding in Him and His Word.
This year I am asking the Lord to transform my heart so that I may be a woman who seeks Him first and comes before Him in honesty in all things. I wage war against my fleshly tendencies “to fake it until I make it.” I reject the urge to put on the exterior of a polished, happy Christian, when in reality I am hurting and walking through hard things. God wants me to walk in candor in my relationship with Him. He already knows everything I feel, and I do not have to fake it. I have started to see this transformation take place by taking time in the morning to pray to the Lord and speak to Him in honesty about how my heart is doing. What would you like to see the Lord transform in your life this year? How could you begin seeing this transformation take place?