A Love Resolution

Goals! With the turn of every new year comes the inevitable opportunity to plan and dream, to resolve to change things, and live in a different way.

What’s on your agenda for this new year? Losing those pesky pounds that always seem to creep in over the holidays? Going after that dream job you’ve been longing for?

How about for your kids? Planning to crack the code for sixth-grade math for your kid? Get her onto the traveling baseball team? Get him into music lessons?

What are we really trying to accomplish here?

There’s nothing wrong with New Year’s resolutions. But it’s important to keep our focus on what’s most important first and then allow God to guide us to different ways to improve our ways of living. This week’s Scripture verse provides a great roadmap.

I pray that you and all God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ’s love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.

Ephesians 3:18-19

What great goal could we have than to understand God’s love more and then apply that love into every aspect of our lives? Oh, the amazing things God could do through us if we would only accept and take hold of his great, great love. The ripple effects of that love would stretch throughout the new year and beyond—in our lives, in our families, in our churches, and in our communities.

This is God’s desire for us, his children. In the same way, it can be our desire for our children to know and live out the love of Jesus Christ. There’s nothing you could check off on a task list that could have the same powerful, eternal impact.

So, as you start this fresh new year and consider all the ways your child needs to learn and grow, don’t lose sight of the main thing. Do all you can to show them the wide, long, high, and deep love of God. Oh, how wonderful!

PRAY

Lord, thank you for your great love for me and my family. Help me show my children your love this year in big and small ways. Amen.

TIME TO TALK

Conversation starter for kids: Provides you with questions and prompts to facilitate a time of applicable discussion with children to lead them towards knowing God and His Word more deeply.

Question(s): What was your favorite thing about this past year? What are you most looking forward to in the new year?

Apply: Take time to celebrate with your kids! It may have been a tough year for you, but as Christians, we can always find ways to be grateful and hopeful. Model this as you talk to your kids this week, and remind them of God’s great love for them.

KEEP IT GOING

Related passages: These additional verses will help parents expand Scriptural knowledge and place on the armor of God’s Word to tackle each day. Swipe to read the passages today.

Jeremiah 31:3

John 15:9

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This devotional was written by Tonia Gutting for the Hero Squad Program of the American Bible Society. Hero Squad provides complimentary faith-based resources to strengthen and encourage Military families through God’s Word. For more information or to enroll your Military family, check out our website.www.myherosquad.org.