It’s that time of year again when, on the occasion of the New Year, many of us resolve to amend our behavior, attempt new things and improve personal habits. Yes, those dreaded New Year’s resolutions.

There’s something about turning the calendar to the next year that causes us to reflect on things we would like to change about our lives. This is good. Personal reflection is required for Christians who are committed to continually becoming better followers of Christ.

Recently, I came across resolutions penned in 1722 and 1723 by Jonathan Edwards— America’s greatest theologian and a leader of the Great Awakening during colonial times. Numbering seventy in all, the resolutions are astounding for what they reveal about Edwards’ devotion to Christ and his determination to glorify God in all that he did. What’s even more amazing is that they were written before his twentieth birthday!

Perhaps most well known for his sermon, "Sinner’s in the Hands of An Angry God" (1741), Edwards was deeply committed to the absolute sovereignty of God in all things. Nevertheless, he also was convinced of man’s responsibility before God. Both of these truths are evident in the preamble to his resolutions: "Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat Him by His grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ’s sake."

Edwards was not like most of us who make New Year’s resolutions and forget about them long before February. In contrast, he even resolved to "remember to read over these Resolutions once a week."

Although Edwards’ resolved to "maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking" (#20) and other more mundane matters, his resolutions were also marked by concern for proper relationships with others. Above all, the statements centered on directing his affections on Christ and finding ways to ensure that God was glorified in his life.

Perhaps the most challenging in the list is #51: "Resolved, that I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned."

Consider just the first ten resolutions:

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.
3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.
9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

Reminiscent of William Carey’s famous declaration, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God," Edwards resolved, "frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God’s glory, to repute it as a breach of the 4th Resolution" (#23).

For most of us, it’s difficult to imagine even desiring to live in a manner which is consistent with Edwards’ resolutions. (To read all the resolutions, see: www.jonathanedwards.com/text/Personal/resolut.htm.) That Edwards himself would have failed to meet these incredibly high standards is not to be doubted. Nevertheless, his intense devotion to Christ and desire to glorify God is something that all of us should aspire to.

"On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time" (#63).

In 2004, let us resolve to live for Christ as we never have before.