Habits for the New Year

January is a wonderful time to make some resolutions for the upcoming year. How do we intend to live our lives? After all, life is the most precious gift from God. What we do with it is our response to God. Some of the most popular resolutions in our culture include losing weight, being more healthy, getting organized, learning something new, and getting out of debt. Of course, most resolutions fail within the first month. We make the resolution, but often we don’t have a plan to make it happen.
Likewise, as followers of Jesus, it’s not enough to simply want to be a disciple, we need a plan and a process to make that happen. Discipleship is a pattern of life. It’s the practices we cultivate in our lives as we submit to our Lord, Jesus. One of the early Church Fathers, Tertullian (c.160 – c.225) said “Christians are made, not born.” That is, it takes work. Just like Olympic athletes are made and not born, the kind of people we become is directly related to the habits we practice in life. We follow Jesus by the practices we make a part of life every day.
The Apostle Paul tells the church at Philippi that they are to conform their practices to Christ as well as to Paul and Timothy, who are models in discipleship. “Brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example” (Philippians 3:17 NLT) Again at the end of the letter Paul says, “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me – everything you heard from me and saw me doing” (Philippians 4:9 NLT).
These practices of discipleship are, for us as Christians, habits for the new year. They are the patterns of life we have learned from disciples older than us in the way of Jesus. They include doing what John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called Works of Piety and Works of Mercy. Wesley's Works of Piety are acts we do that express reverence and love for God, such as studying Scripture; hearing Scripture read and sermons preached; receiving the Lord’s Supper; praying; fasting; coming together for conversation and mutual support; and living healthily. Works of Mercy are acts we do that love and care for our neighbor. Simply, they are doing good to others. Wesley specifically named feeding the hungry; providing clothing and shelter for those in need; visiting the sick and those in prison; welcoming the stranger; comforting the afflicted; offering counsel, advice, and encouragement to those who need to know God or desire to grow in their relationship with God; earning, saving and giving all one can; and opposing slavery (issues of justice).
John Wesley called these "channels of grace” because they are practices or habits that help form us as disciples of Jesus Christ. As we practice these habits, the Holy Spirit uses them to further transform our hearts and lives. This is how we are sanctified, or made holy. The Holy Spirit works in us to renew the image of God in us so that we look, speak, and act differently from the world. Certainly they do not earn us salvation. Rather they are fruit that flow from salvation. Wesley understood their absence, however, to indicate an absence of faith.

Therefore, as Christians, let us resolve to practice these habits this year, living as disciples of Jesus Christ who transform the world.

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