Breaker of New Year's resolutions? This one is for you

Dear Calvary-St. George’s Friends and Family,

We are well into the New Year and I pray you are all doing well and maintaining your New Year’s Resolutions… or at least not beating yourself up over your failures to maintain them (or even the one). Recently, I was given the book, “The Small Changes That Change Everything” by Dr. B.J. Fogg. In the opening pages of the book, Dr. Fogg makes the point that information alone does not reliably change behavior. Instead, his research shows that there are actually only a few things that make lasting change in our lives, one of them being an Epiphany. 

However, Fogg writes:

“Creating a true epiphany for ourselves (or others) is difficult and probably impossible.  We should rule out that option unless we have magical powers (I don’t.)”

Photo credit: Sara Beth Turner

As a Church, we are now in the season of Epiphany. When we gather and remember that God has given an Epiphany to the whole world: that in his Son Jesus, God is our Lord, friend, and most importantly, savior. This Epiphany is Good News because the Epiphany is that God is for failures, for resolution breakers, and meets us right where we are.

The Epiphany is that Jesus is not your divine life coach who says: try a little harder next time or let me see if I can help. Instead, Jesus is our Redeemer who, with his broken body and shed blood, says, “Enjoy Your Forgiveness.”  

This Epiphany really does change lives.

Think about your own life… every time someone has stopped assessing you (although the assessment might be right) and just loved you, something does change within us.

This is the impossible made possible and I pray it makes a huge difference in your life.

Jesus has fulfilled the correct assessment of the law and your conscience, and it has not only made lasting difference in your life; it has made an eternal difference, resolutions kept or not.  

Enjoy your Forgiveness,

The Reverend Jacob Smith