God Given Ability to Hold Your Resolve

There are many Hebrew and Greek words in the Scriptures that express the nuances, depth, and meaning of God’s commitment and “resolution” toward us, and of our vows and decisions before him. A definition of the concept of “resolution” in the Old and New Testaments is: “A divine decree; a human hope; a proclamation of true intention and firm will; a challenge to be answered; a heart and will commitment; a decision that will make the moment; a new era; the beginning or the end of a period or set of behavior; a public or personal declaration or proclamation reflecting true commitment and a profound desire.”

“Faith with a resolution” is the meeting of an honest human decision with divine power that provokes and changes us. It is the Holy Spirit’s intervention and transformation in our history. It is the hand of God holding ours. Listen to this promise Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and that God himself is writing to you:

“This is why we always pray for you that our God may fulfill by his power all of his plans of goodness and grace toward you by the working of your faith that by his power he would allow you and make you capable to fufill, giving life to your faith by his grace.”

It is of utmost importance that we realize that God alone, by his grace and Spirit, can make us capable of keeping any resolution. Paul reminds the Philippians of their only source of power: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). This is a spiritual principle, a kingdom law — that moment when God answers in response to the heart that completely recognizes its inadequacy and absolute inability to please Him by its own strength or volition. It is the death of self-will, self-resolve, self-dependency and self-confidence that brings us to resurrection power. It is the divine connection and moment when all of heaven’s potential, omnipotence and capacity comes in to make possible your human resolution.

It is only by his power that we can fulfill and accomplish the resolution that he writes in our hearts by his Spirit.  

^{Claude Houde is the lead pastor of Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church) in Montreal, Canada. Under his leadership New Life Church has grown from a handful of people to more than 3500 in a part of Canada with few successful Protestant churches.}