Beginning the year with the most powerful essay I’ve ever read

“Happy New Year!”

These words, or their equivalents, were first heard in ancient Babylon four thousand years ago. Today, New Year’s Day is the most universal of all holidays, transcending religions and cultures everywhere.

And making resolutions is as old as the holiday itself. The Babylonians invented this custom as well. Their most popular New Year’s resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

In the US, exercising more and losing weight is a top resolution, along with saving money. Traveling, making new friends, finding a new job or hobby, and finding love also made the list.

According to experts, we should make our goals SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. And we should remember that three steps forward and one step back is still two steps forward.

What is your “ruling passion”?

William Barclay once wrote, “A man will never become outstandingly good at anything unless that thing is his ruling passion. There must be something of which he can say, ‘For me to live is this.’”

Paul was passionately committed to God’s “ruling passion” for his life: “that I may know him” (Philippians 3:10). I am convinced that this is the greatest resolution any of us can make in this new year.

Knowing Jesus intimately is the most transforming, empowering, joyful way of life humans can experience. It is the purpose for which we were made. Nothing else can take its place.

So, how can we know Jesus more intimately this year?

The most powerful essay I’ve ever read

I’d like to begin 2019 in an unusual way by summarizing the most powerful single essay I have ever read. It is by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, and it deals with the very heart of the Christian life.

According to Lewis, before we become Christians, we each take as our starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. When we become followers of Christ, we know that we will need to give up some of these desires and…