Three New Year's Resolutions That Really Can Change Your Year

It's January 1st, the first day of 2016, and you're probably buzzing with possibilities for New Year's Resolutions. You've probably seen some ideas on TV, Facebook and Twitter. Which New Year's Resolution should you make?

Lose weight?

Quit smoking?

Get a better job?

Eliminate your debt?

Start recycling?

These are all great resolutions (and also some of the most commonly broken), but none of these can change your life, your eternity, or the lives of the people around you.

So what can change your life?

Jesus made it clear what was most important: Love God and Love others (Matthew 22:36-40). We call this the "Great Commandment." So what if you made your resolution around what Jesus says matters most?

Here are three New Year's Resolutions, built on the Great Commandment, that could actually change your year:

#1. Spend daily time with God.
Do you spend time every day in pursuit of Jesus? Do you spend time reading the Bible, praying for others, and growing spiritually through your own personal time with Him? Just 15 minutes every morning in prayer and Bible study will radically change the way you see the world, Jesus, and everybody you come into contact with. Honestly, this is where it all starts. Spend time loving God and He will show you how to love others better.

"Spend time loving God and He will show you how to love others better."

At ECHO, we use the Echo Journal. You can pick up a journal at any weekend service or contact the church and we'll send you one.

#2. Get involved at your local church.
Being a part of the Church means more than just attending. The Church is meant to be a body (1 Corinthians 12:27) and you are meant to be a part of it. In the same way that your body only operates well when all of its parts are working together (ever been sick? That's what it's like when some parts aren't working well!), your local church will only be at its best when you are totally plugged into its community. You can do this by being consistent, available, and encouraging. Be known for loving others within your church and always encouraging them no matter what's going on in your life. When the day comes that you need the encouragement, there will be no shortage of people there by your side because you were by their side when it mattered.

"Your local church will only be at its best when you are totally plugged into its community."

At ECHO, we encourage every attender to join a local Microchurch to build relationships, grow spiritually in community, and serve the city.

#3. Start serving at a weekend service.
We live in a culture that is built around consumerism. Even when we go to church, if we're honest we are going for ourselves, not others. We want to have our needs met, to be fed, and when the church or pastor doesn't measure up to our preferences, we go find another church to take care of us. So a challenge for you might be to move from consumer to contributor by getting totally plugged in. Get involved in a ministry team and use your gifts to advance the mission of the church. It will be a great challenge to you by forcing you to give of yourself, and your church will benefit as a result.

"Even when we go to church, if we're honest we are going for ourselves, not others."

At ECHO, we encourage everyone to begin volunteering immediately. When you're ready to go "all in," join our Volunteer Staff and take responsibility for the mission.

So, what's your New Year's Resolution? 

Five Insights to Make Life Less Busy. #4 Is Gold. #BigRocks

Is it me or does everybody seem to be more busy now than ever before? Maybe you can relate or maybe you can't but I've just been noticing lately how much people seem to be so busy that they act as if they are hardly functioning. I'll ask people, "How are you doing?" and they naturally respond, "Busy. Oh real busy. I haven't been this busy in a loooong time. I mean, sleep. What's that? I haven't had sleep in so long I don't even remember what it feels like." It's like people are literally losing the hours in their days.


So I've really been thinking a lot about time and busyness and all of this stuff that seems to be plaguing us. After all, if you get to the point that the only thing you can think of saying is how busy you are, there's probably something going on that you need to deal with. I think there are ways to avoid the busyness rut, though. Here are three insights that I believe could totally change your perspective of time, stress, busyness, and the whole thing:

#1: Your lifestyle is perfectly designed for the results you're getting.
If you are constantly stressed out or overcommitted, you have to eventually come to the place where you realize that something has to change. After all, healthy habits will produce healthy results while unhealthy habits will always lead to unhealthy results. And since habits are so hard to change, you have to take a good hard look and be honest with yourself.

#2: You'll never have enough time in a day.
We all believe that if we just had a few more hours in a day, we wouldn't be stressed, but the truth is that we'll never have enough time, at least not if we keep living the way we do. The problem of busyness is not a time problem. It's an us problem.

#3: It's not how busy you are. It's how well you prioritize.
I noticed something about myself ten or so years ago. I was always going so hard, so fast, and doing so many things that I constantly reached a burn out point. I wanted to live life to the fullest, so I committed to pretty much any activity that presented itself. But somehow my constant desire to do more and more was not bringing me more life, but less. I stretched myself in so many directions that I was never able to fully experience any of them.

#4: We have to put the big rocks in first.
Have you ever noticed how rocks fall into a jar? Check out this video to see what I mean. If you fill the jar with all the little rocks first, the big rocks won't fit in, but if we put the big rocks in first, all the little ones will fall in around them and you can fit everything into the jar? Life is like this. We seem to fill our lives with trivial things that don't matter, leaving little room for the most important things. We need to define which things matter most in life and put these in first, not last.

#5: It's never too late to become who you might have been.
One of our five core values at Echo is Restoration. We believe that people are never beyond hope and can always be made new. After all, that's what following Jesus is all about. It's about being made new! So if you are looking at your life and you can see how some busyness might have taken over, choose to make a change. It's never too late. Really.

If this blog post resonates with you or you would like to find out more about this idea, I'd like to invite you to join me at Echo next Sunday, March 1st. It will be our first "Sneak Peek Service" to the community and would be a great opportunity to see what God has to say about getting our lives in order.

#BigRocks