It’s a new year, and a new decade! This year I am changing everything and going to have a new start of a new life!

OK, sure, we are the same people we were yesterday – same ol’ problems, same ol’ struggles, same same same. Nothing has really changed other than the calendar has switched to a new month, something it does 11 other times a year. But folks – It is a nice logical break. It is the perfect time to implement some things that could lead to real life change, especially right after our celebration of Christ’s birth! 

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation: The old has gone, the new is here!

– 2 Corinthians 5:17

Paul’s great quote in his letter to the Corinthians is a good reminder of what happens when we give our life to Christ. Here is the thing though, you can’t change everything all at once. You can’t try and force your way into doing a lot of new things really suddenly just because the calendar changed. From a strictly scientific standpoint, Newton had this figured out with his First and Second Laws of Motion:

– Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.

– The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impress’d; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impress’d

– Sir Isaac Newton – Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Let’s break that down a little into what we need to keep in mind – We will remain doing nothing or doing the wrong things unless we make small steps towards change because it’s too hard to change a bunch of stuff all at once.

Jesus talked about this fact in many of his parables. He knew that the answer to real and lasting change is to trust the Lord, pray for endurance and to take small steps in the right direction, one right after the other. Will you stumble? Yes, but get back up and take that next right step. If you do this, pretty soon, you will find that you have accomplished a lot more than you ever expected. Bring on the New Year and the Mountains!

1 Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

– Psalm 96:1-3

10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

– Luke 16:10

31 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

– Matthew 13:31-32

20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

– Matthew 17:20

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

– Hebrews 12:1

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