I’ve been thinking about some New Year’s resolutions I could make this year… But failure is more common than success. Why?
Change is hard because of your… auto pilot! You know what an auto pilot is… It is that system in an airplane or a boat or a car that you can set to go a certain speed or a certain direction.
If you're in a boat and the auto pilot is set for East, you can force it to go West by putting an oar in the water and forcibly pushing it. But after a while you get tired, and you let go of the oar - and back to the east it goes!
We are a lot like that. You try to change your life by forcibly turning in another direction. You make a resolution. By willpower, you force yourself. But the whole time you're under tension, because by willpower you're trying to go the opposite way that you're naturally inclined to go. Pretty soon you get tired and you let go of the oar and it automatically turns back. I go off the diet, start smoking again, bitterness floods back, acting the way I've always done. If you want to change, you've got to change your auto pilot.
How do you do things like this?
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.” Luke 6:43
Jesus says you have to change the tree. No apple tree makes a resolution to have cherries this year! You have to have a new tree! If your resolution is to be more forgiving, you have to become a person for whom forgiveness is a natural expression of your heart. If your resolution is to become more generous, you have to become a person who loves to be generous and does it naturally and easily - the good tree that bears good fruit.
How does he do that in you? Here’s the secret: change the inside, and the outside will follow…
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