Resolutions – by Pastor Tony

It’s a new year. Many of those who are reading this have already failed at their new year’s resolutions and others are still hanging on. If history is an indication of what is to come, 2017 will come with similar resolutions and similar results. Sadly, we are slow to learn. Nevertheless, our good intentions compel us to “give it another go.” I suspect the fitness centers around us are fuller in the early days and weeks of January than any other time of the year. In time we will all fall back (with very few who are able to push through to the end) into the old patterns of who we are. Indeed, even with the few success stories among us, we are unable to truly change who we are.

This is among the truths that we must acknowledge as we come to the Lord for His grace. Indeed, in order to receive grace, we must first acknowledge our need. We need help.

More than that, and along with that, a more fundamental truth that we must first come to grips with is that we are sinful.

The fact that we are a sinful people is not news to the prophet Micah (if you haven’t looked at the book of Micah lately, take a look – but be ready to apply some sobering and difficult truths). Micah begins his message to Judah by letting them know that there is impending doom. But his message of destruction for a sinful people (all of which could be applied to each of us) is not without hope. In Micah 4:1-2a he expresses the hope that in the days to come, despite the impeding destruction of the temple; “the mountain (temple) of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”

There is good news to come! Those days have indeed come! In the following chapters Micah reveals that there will be a ruler to be born in Bethlehem. Christmas is the exact fulfillment of the prophecy of Micah.

But the days of salvation are yet far off.

God’s people would need to wait nearly 800 years to see Micah’s words fulfilled. In the same way, we view the promise of salvation for a day yet to come (if you are reading this you are still waiting for that great inheritance which is being kept for you). For those who have turned to Christ for salvation we have already received God’s salvation yet we have not yet fully realized its inheritance in heaven.

Thus, we must wait (like Micah’s readers). As impending doom knocks at the door of each of his reader’s homes (that includes you and me), they/we are called to “look to the Lord” Micah writes, “I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (7:7).