You Can’t Face Two Ways At Once
“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other…” Luke 16:13
Did you make any resolutions for the new year? Are you still on track with them? How is your resolve holding up? “I hearby resolve to… lose 20 pounds! Go to the gym every day! Get the rose garden weeded! Call my mother once a week!”
The only way to keep a resolution is to first turn away from what you were doing previously, and then continue in the new behavior. This sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
We can think of all kinds of reasons to stop our old behaviors—this is why we make those resolutions! The hard part is continuing in the new behavior. We are breaking old habits, whether they are physical, mental, or emotional. Something put those behaviors solidly in place in our lives, and that something has to be continually dealt a deathblow in order to make the new behaviors stick.
Pastor, Bible teacher, and author John Piper says, “You can’t face two ways at once.”* Although he was talking about conversion, let’s think in terms of New Year’s resolutions. We might say that we can’t travel backwards while going forward. We can take a step forward or a step backward, but we can’t do both at the same time. We can’t move toward our new life if we are moving toward our old life.
Likewise, we can’t move toward Christ while we are moving away from Him. But God has given us great and precious promises to help us move toward Christ! He has literally “opened the door of faith” to us (Acts 14:27).
Lord, my resolution is to give You Your rightful place in my life. Let all I do and say bring You glory. I can’t serve two masters; I can’t face two ways at once. I therefore choose to be loyal to You, and thus despise my old life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.