Self-improvement is not a do-it-yourself project. Oh, most of the world’s religions believe that we all just need to try a little harder, but by this time in the cycle of New Year’s resolutions and disappointments, our inherent weakness should be obvious to all of us.

But that’s the good news that Jesus Christ brings to us. For when we come to Christ, trusting Him as Savior, that means we become connected to Him, part of His body. And that, in turn, means that when He died on the cross, we died with Him – we died to the power of sin and death over us. And that also means, that when He rose from the dead, we also have a new life – a new purpose for living and a new ability to live according to God’s perfect law of love.

So the bottom line is that Christians don’t have to go on living in sin, disconnected from God and from God’s people. We don’t have to go on giving in to temptation. Of course, we can choose to sin, just as someone who is alive can play dead. But by His death and resurrection, Christ has given all His people the ability to resist temptation and sin.

So, if you want the power to become the best, the most loving person you can be, come to Christ. Bow the knee to Him as Lord and accept the free gift of pardon that He offers. For once we have sworn allegiance to Christ as King, then we can rejoice in the freedom and power He has given to all who trust in Him.

Romans 6:1-14 (ESV)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.