How often do our New Year’s resolutions feel like echoes from years past? That instead of walking down life’s road we find ourselves stuck on a treadmill, expending just as much effort, but nonetheless going nowhere. What is it that causes our New Year's resolutions to falter and any change to be unsustainable?

The key to this lies in viewing the action required as more than just change but rather transformation. Essentially, change is something that can return to how it was before. Take ice; it’s cold, hard and frozen. Yet it can be melted to become water. This water can be boiled to become steam, which after evaporation becomes rain. The rain comes down and we have water again which we can drink, freeze or boil. Transformation on the other hand is more like a bunch of grapes. We can stomp on them for a long time, and keep the juice for a while before we finally have wine. This wine can never become grapes again. That is transformation. It cannot be undone.

Paul the Apostle encourages us not to “be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind“ (Romans 12:2). We are not to be "of" the world, conforming to its mould by taking on worldly rationale and values. To see our lives transformed, we must change our thinking to effect change in our actions. What thoughts we allow to take root in our mind is a choice and will determine our actions and ultimately our destiny. “As a man thinks in his heart so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

When you sow a thought you reap an action, sow an action you reap a habit, sow a habit you reap a character, sow a character you reap a destiny.  —Anonymous

Words and thoughts are the fuel that the brain uses to reproduce. However successful or unsuccessful we will be is undeniably linked to the words and beliefs we tell ourselves. William James, a psychologist said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind.” Our mind is a powerful thing and needs to work for us and not against us.

So how do we transform our minds?

1. Maintain focus on God. This must be our priority. That is, to know God intimately through spending time with Him. As we abide in Him, we will know what it means to “live and move and have our being” in God (Act 17:28).
2. Focus on things above. Set our mind on things above. (Colossians 3:1-2) Meditate on God’s blessings. This helps us to connect with God in a deeper way and it enables God to work in our lives so that we will desire to act “according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). By pondering His benefits, we invite God to work a change of heart within us.
3. Stay positive. Complaining will keep us from the promises of God just as it kept the Israelites from possessing the Promised Land. Attitude is everything. When we have a positive attitude we focus on the good in others and we count your blessings. We see possibilities and live in an atmosphere of hope, which leads to faith. Winston Churchill once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
4.  Understand who we are in Christ. The key lies in seeing ourselves from God’s perspective. God’s motive in creating us was His love. “Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, He had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love” (Ephesians 1:4).
5. Check what we are saying to ourselves. When we say things like “I can’t do that,” we don’t give God the opportunity to move in our lives. Despite our circumstances we need to tell ourselves that we are the head and not the tail, a lender not a borrower, that we are more than conquerors.
6. Discipline. It takes work to ensure that our minds are renewed and that we remain stable. To have our lives transformed we must activate 2 Corinthians 10:5. “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

The anointing of the Holy Spirit allows truth to penetrate into the very fiber of our being, transforming us into the likeness of Christ. The seeking of this transformation should be the resolution of our heart—the ultimate New Year’s resolution.

Copyright © by Philippa Smyth