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In a recent survey, 73.76% of men and 74.26% of women plan to make a New Year’s resolution. The categories they used were health, self-improvement, money, family, love, and career. For this blog, I am combining money and career and also combining family and love as they are very similar. 

Proverbs 21:5-6 states; “The plans of the diligent {lead} surely to advantage, But everyone who is hasty {comes} surely to poverty. 6.  The acquisition of treasures by a lying tongue Is a fleeting vapor, the pursuit of death” 

Traditionally, every New Year’s we set our goals for the next year. In my opinion, we should have goals for our life, and New Year’s should be a time of reflection and seeing where we are in the overall goal. The resolutions should then be a time to review your life so far and make a list of the adjustments that you want to make. Those should be your New Year’s resolutions. History has proven that if you don’t personally make plans for your life someone else will. I know from personal experience. There are 2 basic paths that we can choose for our life even the narrow road or the wide road. We can either choose a life guided by Christ or by Satan, it’s our choice and there is no in-between, it is one or the other. 

The 4 Primary Categories I will use are; Health, Self-Improvement, Family/ Love, and Career/ Money. I will not go into a long explanation of each category but I do want to give you just a few scriptures in each category to think about when you make that list. Like I stated, the first and in my opinion the most important thing is to look at your life over the past year and honestly evaluate where you are in your overall goals for your life. Do you want a life of trauma and crises or a life of peace? The one question I use is if I were to die tomorrow how would I be remembered. It may sound morbid, but to me, it is the true litmus test of where I am in my life compared to where I want to be. 

Here Are The Categories With The Scripture; 

Health; 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 19Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 

James 5:13-16  

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 

Self-Improvement; 

• Psalm 51:10-11; Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 
• James 5:12.  But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment. 

• Jeremiah 29:11-14; For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. 

Family/ Love; 

• Colossians 3:14-15; And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 
• Exodus 20:12;  “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. 
• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7;  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

• 1 Timothy 3:4; He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. 
• 1 Timothy 5:8; Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 

Career/ Money; 

Philippians 4:13; “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” 

Matthew 6:33; But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Philippians 4:19; And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 

Proverbs 3:5-6; Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 

Proverbs 19:21; Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. 

Conclusion 

James 4:13-17; Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. 

Philippians 3:12-15; Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 

Psalm 51:10-11; Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 

Remember that your New Year’s resolution and plans for your life should be yours and yours alone. No one, and I mean no one, should tell you what path you have to take, the choice is yours. Just remember that every choice you make has its consequences either good or bad and that you cannot blame anyone but yourself if you make a wrong choice. God bless.