One of the biggest clichés about New Year’s resolutions is how quickly and how prone we are to break them. In fact, many people who I talk to don’t make resolutions for this exact reason. They have a history. And it’s a history of resolutions that they were unable to follow through with.

Mostly, the exercise of making New Year’s resolutions is an exercise in futility. Are there exceptions? Of course there are. But mostly, the successes are obtained through sacrificial willpower and grit.

I have NEVER heard anyone testify about how much FUN they had keeping their New Year’s resolutions. Have you?

Did you know that God KNOWS that you don’t have the willpower to keep your New Year’s resolutions?

And He actually has a solution for that!

The practice of making New Year’s resolutions is actually no different than what the Jews tried to do for 2000 years. They had a list of rules and regulations that they tried to live by that they called the “Law.”

And they had a 100% failure rate in keeping those resolutions!

The rules and regulations that we call “resolutions” have a fatal flaw. And what is the fatal flaw? They don’t provide any power to carry them out!

In fact, what they REALLY do is uncover weaknesses and reveal flaws of character.

But as I said, God has provided a solution! He has given us power for living. It is power that He provides by His GRACE and not because of your good performance.

We call this power the “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”

Now there is much erroneous teaching in the body of Christ about this experience. And all of this error keeps Christians stuck at the level of making resolutions to improve but failing in their implementation.

Some teach that this is the same experience as water baptism. But the very next paragraph makes a clear distinction that these are NOT the same.

Some teach that this experience occurs at our conversion when we become born-again, but there are numerous occasions in the book of Acts where these two events are clearly different.

And some teach that this experience can only occur if you can keep all your resolutions and live a perfect life. But these non-Jews in this passage weren’t keeping ANY of the rules, regulations, or resolutions.

The solution is POWER for living. And it’s free. Just ask God.