by Erin Davis
This is the year. I just know it. I can feel it in my bones.
This year is going to be different.
This year I’m going to be different.
I won’t come to the end of the new year and find the old me. Nope. I’m being transformed, day by day, little by little. My secret? God’s Word.
There’s a reason why more than 80% of our new year’s resolutions fail (most of them in the first few days of the new year). We’re not capable of transforming ourselves into a new creation. That’s God’s job. He is already at work to make all things new, even me, even you.
What tool does He use most often to re-shape us? His Word! If we commit to open our Bibles in the year ahead, we can know for sure that God will multiply that effort to make us more like Him.
Kill Your Love For the Bible In a Single Step
I hope you’ve still got all of the motivation that comes with a new year. A fresh start gives us the shot in the arm we need to desire to make a change.
Maybe you’re well into a great read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan or enjoying filling the pages of a new Bible study. That renewed passion for the Bible is a gift. But I know one sure-fire way to kill it—make the Bible about you.
I’ve seen this saga played out plenty of times in my own life. . .
- I open my Bible to try to become a better me
- I start to study Scripture looking for myself
- I read God’s Word looking for stories that sound like my life. . .
And in no time at all, my love for the Bible has waned.
There are simply too many other, easier ways to think about me. I can scroll on my phone, daydream about my dreams, or talk about my hopes for the year ahead much easier than I can dig into God’s Word. If my goal is to think about me, I don’t even have to crack my Bible open to make it happen.
But thinking about me won’t make me new. I need eyes superglued to Jesus. And I need the reminder that the Bible isn’t a book about me; the Bible is a book about God.
When I open my Bible with the goal of discovering who God is, it becomes a treasure trove, loaded with priceless riches I can’t find anywhere else. The more I look for God in the pages of my Bible, the easier it is to find Him and the more I find Him, the more I love Him and want to serve Him.
Listen to the promise found in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
What is it that transforms us? Beholding the glory of the Lord. It’s through looking at Jesus, as often as possible, that we are made new.
Learn to Look for the Higher Story
Who we are and how we live is the lower story. If we want to experience transformation this year, we must learn to look up, to see the higher arc—God’s story.
Gluing your eyes on your eating habits, your bookshelf, or your goals for the year ahead won’t move the needle toward a new you. But open your Bible, again and again. Look to Jesus, and watch in amazement at how He works in you.
I’d love to invite you and your teen daughter (12-19) to open your Bible with me in the new year. Join Dannah Gresh and me as we walk through A Beautiful Story in an 8-week online study. Together, we’ll look at the lives of 10 women found in the Old Testament and see how the lower story of their ordinary lives point upward, to the higher story of our extraordinary God. Sign up at mytruegirl.com/onlinestudy. Sign up soon! Our study begins on January 20th.
I can’t wait to see how God transforms us through His Word this year.
