The WORD unleashed

It's about time for the year to roll around; it's already 2010 ... I can't believe it's gone by so fast some will say to themselves; and I haven't changed this or that; or whatever it is about themselves they feel a need to do something about. It's time for New Years resolutions one more time; it's time for the "self promises" one more time. I am going to change this, or I am going to do better at that we say to ourselves; but as the days go by and the New Year becomes just another year, nothing really changes at all. And whatever promises we've promised ourselves lasts for only a few days, or never really materializes at all.

What makes it so hard to keep our New Years resolutions? What makes it so hard to make a change in ourselves? The answer could be because we really like whatever it is that we are doing or how we're acting (that we feel a need to stop); but we just know it's wrong; or needs to be improved.
New Years resolutions is an attempt to reform ourselves; and self reform is difficult to say the least. Jesus talked about the difficulty of self reform in Luke 11:24-26Luke 11:24 - When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.
25 And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.  KJV. He said of the man in this teaching; when he found himself without that which he was accustomed to, he was miserable and undone. So in his misery he decides to go back to what he knew; but this time he was seven times worse. His last state was worse than his first. Some people may call it swapping vices, or just going from bad to worse, but whatever it's called; without a heart change - it's hard to really make a change.

Jesus said it would be like putting new wine into old wineskinsLuke 5:37 - And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.  KJV. The new wind will burst the old wineskins - it will rip the wine skin at the seams. It makes no sense to put a new piece of clothLuke 5:36 - And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.  KJV on an old garment, it just makes the old look worse. This could be why New Years resolutions are so hard to stick to.

The solution is a simple one, a person must become a new person, walking in a new life. Or in other words, a person must be born again1 Peter 1:22 - Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.  KJV to really walk a new walk in life. Self reform is the same old person in heart trying to go in a new direction - getting things right with God is a new person with a new heart that has a different set of rules by which to live. That will last and that will work because the inner compass gets reset to a new north.