While he was still a young man, Jonathan Edwards penned a list of resolutions for his life. As he went along, he added to it and by the end of his life he had created a list of 70 goals for his life. As we enter a new year, I want to put these in front of you (10 at a time) for reflection and as an example of what a passionate dedication to Jesus looks like, and in the case of Edwards, what such discipline can create.
- Resolved: I will not give way to that apathy and listlessness which I find artificially eases and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on God’s Grace. Whatever excuses I may have for it, whatever my listlessness inclines me to do, or rather whatever it inclines me to neglect doing, I will realize that it would actually be best for me to do these things.
- Resolved: Never to do anything but what God, by the Law of Love, requires me to do. And then, according to Ephesians 6.6-8, I must do it willingly and cheerfully as to the Lord, and not for man. I must remember that whatever good thing any man has or does he has first received from God; and that whenever a man is compelled by faith to act with love and charity toward others, especially those in need, that we do it as if to/for the Lord.
- On the hypothetical supposition that at any one time there was never to be but ONE individual in the world who was a genuine and complete Christian, who in all respects always demonstrated the Faith shining in its truest luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever angle and under whatever circumstance this Faith is viewed… Resolved: To act just as I would do, if I strove with all my strength, to be that ONE; and to live as if that ONE should live in my time and place.
- Resolved: Whenever I experience those “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8.26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those “longings” that consume our souls, of which the Psalmist speaks (Psalm 119:20), I will embrace them with everything I have within me. And I will not be weary of earnestly endeavoring to express my desires, nor of the repetitions so often necessary to express them and benefit from them.
- Resolved: To exercise myself in all my life long, with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires; and every thing in every circumstance. (See Dr. Manton‘s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119.)
- Resolved: I will endeavor always to keep a gracious demeanor, and air of acting and speaking in all places and in all companies, except if it should so happen that faithfulness requires otherwise.
- Resolved: After afflictions, to inquire in what ways I am now the better for having experienced them. What good have I received by them? What benefits and insights do I now have because of them?
- Resolved: To confess honestly to myself all that I find in myself – whether weakness or sin. And if it something that concerns my spiritual health, I will also confess the whole case to God, and implore him for all needed help.
- Resolved: Always to do that which I will wish I had done whenever I see others do it.
- Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.