My amazing editor gets up every morning at 5:30 a.m. to proofread the Daily Article, post it on our website, and distribute it via email. To give her today’s holiday off, we finished this article yesterday. As a result, I’m predicting what you now know to be true (or not):

• Roughly one million people packed into New York City’s Times Square last night to watch a crystal ball drop from One Times Square as midnight approached.
• The ball was new this year, adorned with 5,280 crystals and weighing about 12,350 pounds.
• For the first time ever, it was relit and dropped again at approximately 12:04 am E.T. in anticipation of America’s 250^th anniversary on July 4, 2026. The ball will drop a third time on the eve of the Fourth of July for the same reason.

Door County in Wisconsin dropped a giant cherry into a crowd of people, while Amelia Island, Florida, dropped a giant shrimp and Boise, Idaho, dropped a giant glowing potato at the state’s capitol. But I think beginning the new year with a lighted ball descending to a waiting crowd is especially appropriate. Consider these facts:

• It’s dark at midnight, which makes the light more necessary, obvious, and powerful.
• The light descends from the heavens above to the earth below.
• Its light is available to all but experienced only by those who seek to do so.
• It was anticipated when I wrote about it, but it became a reality at the proper moment—not a minute too soon or too late.

If you were reading about such light on Christmas rather than New Year’s Day, would any of this seem familiar?

“It is you who light my lamp”

Simeon called the baby Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). John’s Gospel says of God’s Son, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

When we trusted him as our Lord, our Father “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). In this kingdom, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Accordingly, we are called to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (v. 7).

Martin Luther warned: “The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands.” Conversely, David prayed, “It is you who light my lamp; the Lᴏʀᴅ my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28).

When we choose the former, we experience the latter.

Six practical resolutions

To walk in the transforming light of Christ this year, we must determine to do so. This is the New Year’s Resolution of all resolutions.

Jesus honors the free will with which we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), so he will not force us to walk in his light. To experience his transforming grace, let’s make six practical resolutions within the Resolution:

1: Start each day in the light of Christ. We cannot walk in the light unless we are in the light. Begin every day with Jesus in worship, prayer, and Bible study as you connect your heart with his and submit your life and day to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

2: Stay in the light through the day. When the enemy tempts you with darkness, leverage his evil for good by turning instantly to the Spirit for his guidance and power. If you step out of the light, confess your sin immediately, claim your Father’s forgiveness, and return to the light.

3: Focus on the present. We cannot walk the next mile while walking this mile. All of God there is, is in this moment.

4: Give thanks to God for all that is good. After her horrific captivity, a freed Israeli hostage named Emily Damari wrote:

I have … learned to value everything I do in my life. I open the fridge: I say thank you. I drink cold water: I say thank you. I am thankful for everything—big things and little things. Gratitude is very important. I am grateful that I have the privilege of being thankful.

5: Trust God to redeem all that is hard. Matthew Henry noted: “Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” As the Roman philosopher Seneca observed, “You learn to know a pilot in a storm.”

6: Make Christlikeness your goal. Jane Goodall wrote: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” You can make no greater difference in the world than manifesting the light of Christ in our dark culture.

“You can do all that God has called you to”

If we make these daily resolutions, we will fulfill our life Resolution. We will “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7). His Spirit will transfuse our minds and hearts with the light of Christ. His light will shine through our words and works and defeat the darkness wherever we go.

And neither our lives nor our world will ever be the same.

As you begin your year, I want to highly recommend First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource. A recent article reminded us:

You can do all that God has called you to. Whether it be victory over sin, engaging in difficult confession, walking biblically rather than according to the world, seeking unity and fellowship with those that bother you, or simply seeking God with all your heart, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you today if you are willing to receive.

What next step into his light has God “called you to” today?

Quote for the day:

“Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because he loves us.” —Tullian Tchividjian

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

Do you sometimes find yourself feeling anxious without an apparent explanation? Are there days when things are good in your personal world, but that world is somehow not enough?

I know the feeling.

Let’s consider a juxtaposition. An article on “favorite good news from this year” includes these headlines:

• “Heart attack deaths dropped by nearly 90 percent since 1970.”
• “US crime dropped across multiple categories in 2024 and 2025.”
• “The fight against colon cancer made progress.”
• “A groundbreaking therapy slowed Huntington’s disease for the first time.”

The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker similarly cites data showing that “global life expectancy, affluence, and literacy are at all-time highs, while extreme poverty and violent crime are at all-time lows.”

And yet . . .

According to Gallup, US mental health ratings have also fallen to an all-time low. “Rage rooms” are cropping up, offering a “cathartic release” for those coping with anger, frustration, and anxiety. The philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han writes that “every age has its signature afflictions” and identifies ours as “depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, and burnout syndrome.”

Why are so many people so unhappy amid such prosperity?

“The remedy for our broken world”

Dr. Han notes that our culture very rarely challenges our sense of identity, tolerating and even applauding whatever we choose to believe, think, and do. We are so free to be ourselves that nothing distinct from us draws us out of ourselves.

I would add that this tolerance-centered ethos ignores the simple fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Left to ourselves, with no external referent to guide us or empower us to be better, we have no hope but ourselves. But we long to be more than we are. So we escape into screens or AI chatbots or immerse ourselves in work or hobbies or relationships we hope will provide meaning we cannot find in ourselves.

But excessive screen time damages us physically, mentally, and emotionally. AI chatbots are increasingly linked to psychosis and implicated in promoting self-harm, supporting delusions, and spreading misinformation. And the people we encounter in work and hobbies and relationships are as finite and flawed as we are.

What are we to do?

The cultural scholar Ian Tuttle reports that Dr. Han “suggests the possibility of an Other who is, also, not other; something outside ourselves that also restores us to ourselves; something that transcends us and yet embraces us.” Dr. Tuttle concludes:

We might consider the possibility that the extraordinary confusions of our time will not—cannot be solved from within our time. We might consider the possibility that the remedy for our broken world will require a different kind of physician (his emphases).

“He the source, the ending he”

The second-century apologist Irenaeus wrote that Christ “became what we are so that we might become what he is.”

Jesus was as fully human as you and me: he entered our race, experienced our humanity, faced our temptations, felt our pain, and suffered our separation from God (Mark 15:34). In so doing, he was able to take our sin on himself and die the death that sin produces (Romans 5:12; 6:23).

And yet Jesus was and is as fully God as his Father. His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence shocked many who experienced his divinity firsthand. He stated bluntly, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

By virtue of his divine capacity, he is “able to save to the uttermost” those who trust in him (Hebrews 7:25). Accordingly, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Or as Irenaeus put it, to “become what he is.”

The living Lord Jesus is thus “outside ourselves,” yet he “also restores us to ourselves.” He “transcends us and yet embraces us.” He is the “different kind of physician” for which our hearts and our world long.

The Roman Christian poet Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (AD 348–413) proclaimed:

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending he,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!

“Christian, remember your dignity”

Now we can trust him to do in us what he did for us.

Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 391–461) encouraged us:

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

St. Leo was right: Our Father has “delivered us from the domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13). Our part is to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7), to practice his presence in a lifestyle of prayer and praise (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18), and then to measure our success by our Christlikeness as “Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

In short, we are to love our Lord and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). When we do, we become more like our Lord and draw our neighbor to our Father. In this sense, Francis Chan was wise to ask,

“Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?”

Do you?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live.” —Leonard Ravenhill

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

New Year’s Day brings with it some interesting traditions.

People in Romania wear bear costumes and dance around. In Scotland, they make balls from wire and paper, light them on fire, and swing them while walking through the streets. In Italy, people throw pots, pans, and old furniture from their windows as the clock strikes midnight.

In Turkey, they wear red underwear to bring luck to their loved ones. In Latin America, people wear red underwear if they’re looking for love, and green underwear if they’re seeking wealth. I wonder what you wear if you’re looking for both.

One of the most ancient New Year’s customs has to do with resolutions. Babylonians apparently began this tradition four thousand years ago; they vowed to return borrowed farm equipment. If I have borrowed your tractor, I promise to return it this year.

Statistic Brain Research Institute has compiled some interesting facts regarding New Year’s Resolutions:

•  45 percent of Americans usually make New Year’s resolutions
  •    Only 8 percent are successful in achieving them
  •    However, 49 percent have at least infrequent success
  •    Only 24 percent never succeed in fulfilling their resolution each year.

Here’s a fact I found particularly interesting: People who explicitly make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.

So it’s clearly a good idea to have goals, whether they take the form of New Year’s resolutions or not. What should ours be?

According to a 2016 survey by Money magazine, the most popular New Year’s Resolutions were:

•  “Enjoy life to the fullest”
  •    “Live a healthier lifestyle”
  •    “Lose weight”
  •    “Save more, spend less”
  •    “Spend more time with family and friends”
  •    “Pay down debt.”

How many of them focus on us? How many on others? How many on God?

What New Year’s resolution does our Father want us to make?

As I prayed about that question, a passage came immediately to mind. Let’s explore it together, and see how it can guide us into God’s best plan and purpose for us in the new year.

Know God’s resolutions

On Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus was teaching in the Temple area, where his enemies lined up to debate him. In two days Jesus will be betrayed; in three he will be crucified.

So it is that the Pharisees “gathered together” (v. 34) to plot against our Lord. Then “one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’” (vv. 35-36).

Let’s understand his trick question. The Jewish authorities counted 248 positive commandments, as many as the members of the body; and 365 negative commands, one for every day of the year; for a total of 613, as many as the Hebrew letters of the Ten Commandments. Which is most important? If Jesus chooses one, he’ll be accused of denigrating the others.

Jesus turns the debate into a proclamation for the ages. Here we find God’s two resolutions for our lives. The first: “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment’” (vs. 37-38).

“Love” translates agape, the unconditional commitment to place the other person first. It is not a feeling, but a decision, a lifestyle. In this case, it is choosing to honor God in all you do, to put him first in every dimension of your life.

In Jewish theology, your “heart” is the will, your practical dimension. Your “soul” is your intuitive dimension. Your “mind” is your rational dimension. These are the three ways we know everything we know: practical, intuitive, and rational. We use a cell phone practically, since most of us don’t understand the technology rationally. We like people intuitively; we do math rationally.

Jesus tells us to love God with “all” your heart, soul, and mind. Put him first with your decisions, your attitudes, and your thoughts. There is to be no part of your life that is not his, no part where you do not value him first, seek relationship with him first, please him first.

Imagine a world where everyone sought to please God with every thought, decision, and attitude. That’s God intention for our culture today.

The second resolution: “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands depend all the Law and the Prophets” (vs. 39-40). We are to agape our neighbor, the next person we meet, as much as we do ourselves. What does this mean?

We have an instinct for self-preservation; we must seek the preservation and good of that person as we do for ourselves. We tend to excuse our own mistakes—after all, we know what we meant to say, or do. We must do the same for others. We think first about how this will affect us—we must think first how this will affect our neighbor. This is not a suggestion, but a command.

It is human nature to judge ourselves by our intentions, but others by our actions. When we love our neighbor as ourselves, we give them the same benefit of the doubt that we give ourselves. We extend to them the same forgiveness, the same understanding, the same compassion we extend to ourselves.

Imagine a world where everyone loved their neighbor as themselves. That’s God’s intention for our culture today.

When we put God first, we position ourselves to receive all that his grace intends to give. He can lead us in his “good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). He can bless us, use us, redeem our lives, and make our present obedience count for all eternity.

When we put neighbor first, we position ourselves to bless others as God has blessed us. We become conduits of the Holy Spirit in the world. We lead others to Christ, because they see Christ in us. We become change agents in a fallen culture desperate to see God’s love in ours. We become salt and light, and our lives change the lives we touch.

Live by God’s resolutions

Here’s the problem: You and I are fallen people. The only person who has ever lived perfectly by God’s life resolutions is the one who taught them to us. So what do we do?

Four simple steps are vital.

One: Resolve to put God and neighbor first in all you do.

To love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength is to put him first in every area of your life. Ask before every word or action, will this honor Jesus? Will it help my neighbor? Make this your New Year’s Resolution, your lifestyle commitment.

Two: Begin the day in God’s word.

You need God’s word to fulfill God’s will. J. I. Packer was right: the Bible is “God preaching.” Hebrews 4: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (v. 12).

God will speak to you through his word, if you will listen. So set aside time at the beginning of every day to meet him in his word. Get a good study Bible: I recommend the ESV Study Bible or the NIV Study Bible. Get a notebook so you can record what you hear from Scripture. Make a plan for Bible reading, whether you read through the Bible in a year, or a chapter a day, or whatever seems best to you.

As you read, ask the Spirit who inspired Scripture to speak from it to you. Define your challenges or questions for the day, and ask God to answer them from his word. Make time for God’s word, and God’s word will change your life.

Three: Walk through the day in his presence.

When you face challenges, pray about them. When you have decisions to make, pray about them. When God blesses you, thank him.

Then make specific times through the day to be with him. The psalmist prayed “evening and morning and at noon” (Psalm 55:17). From then to today, the Jews have typically set aside three times a day for prayer and worship. We should do the same.

Four: End the day with him.

Take a moment to look back over your day. Thank God for all that was good. Ask his forgiveness for any sins you recognize. Commit yourself to him for the evening and the day to come. Begin and end the day with your Father, and he will bless all you surrender to him.

Conclusion

It’s often said that today is the first day of the rest of your life. That’s obviously true. But this day could be formative for the rest of our lives, if we choose today to live by God’s New Year resolutions. If we choose to put God and neighbor first in all we do. We could be catalysts for a spiritual awakening in our lives and through the lives we touch, where we live and around the world.

Jonathan Edwards began every day with these two commitments: “Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I will.” And God made him the greatest theologian in American history and used him to spark the First Great Awakening.

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.’” And God made his biblical commentaries the most popular in the English language.

I was once speaking at a university in Kentucky and made time to visit Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace near Hodgenville. There’s a plaque at that location that records the following conversation:

“Any news down t’ the village, Ezry?”

“Well, Squire McLains’s gone t’ Washington t’ see Madison swore in, and ol’ Spellman tells me this Bonaparte fella has captured most o’ Spain. What’s new out here, neighbor?”

“Nuthin’, nuthin’ a’tall, ‘cept fer a new baby born t’ Tom Lincoln’s. Nothin’ ever happens out here.”

How will God view the importance of this moment in eternity?

Denison Forum