We are one month into the new year! How are your resolutions holding up? I am not a critic of resolutions; they have very often marked turning points in my own life. (More on that here.) But I am convinced that fresh resolve will never be enough for the change that is needed in our lives and in our nation.

Just before the new year our daughter Morgan said to me and her mother one night, “I have been thinking that what we really need in the new year is not resolutions but revival.” (She would be the preacher in the family if she believed in women preachers!) Over the last few days I have been meditating on what she said.

Resolutions give us what men can do. Revival gives us what only God can do. We need God. In some ways we are living through a revolution in our country – a moral, social, political revolution. The only hope is spiritual revival.

Revival has never come from men’s good ideas or ingenuity; it is always divine intervention. And it only begins when we finally come to the end of ourselves. In the words of the Lord to people needing real change, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

I am not recommending that you abandon your resolutions for the year. Continue! I am suggesting, however, that we must go further – beyond our effort and energy. Seek the Lord! Only He can give us what we really need.

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