Another Halfway

Yesterday was the 26th Lord’s Day of 2025. We are halfway through the year. We begin the third quarter on Tuesday. How are your New Year’s Resolutions? Ha!

I’ve been interested in trying to get things done while enjoying the process for a long time. I’ve lived through the WWJD framework, as well as the re-awakening of caring about the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (which he wrote when he was 19 years-old in 1723). I’ve also lived long enough to hear about, and experience for myself, the fatigue of repeated failure. You make a plan, you don’t finish, you fail, you’re frustrated so you give up trying.

Then there are others who regard all the days the same. They say, if it matters, just stop it, or do it different, now, no need for a list. I find that people with this mindset are not necessarily more consistent, or happy. But again, making a “big hairy audacious goal” (BHAG) doesn’t guarantee that what you build will last either.

More relevant than projects or tasks is obedience (though, we can’t obey without good works). We don’t obey to be saved, but we are saved with a want to obey. Conviction doesn’t always come on schedule, but if you read the Bible on schedule you’re more likely to run into conviction. This is exactly what we see in Nehemiah 8-10. The people listen to the Book, they understand it, they are convicted by it, then they commit to obey it.

Go ahead and commit to obey.

When you don’t obey, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1). But your identity is one who is a slave to righteousness (Romans 6:18). You’ve been raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). So if you fall, remember who God saved you to be, and resolve to obey.

A righteous man “falls seven times,” but he “rises again” (Proverbs 24:16). Did you sin? Don’t do it twice. Did you miss the mark? Repent and by God’s grace get after it.