Check out this month’s guest blog by Chase Barnhart! We had the privilege of meeting Chase earlier this year, as God made a way for us to move to Fresno! Chase recently moved to pursue a master’s degree, and though we miss him, we are grateful for the season we had with him. Chase is passionate about the Lord, and he is a powerful speaker and teacher. Be inspired in your walk with Jesus as you read Chase’s words!

“Nothing Has Changed” by Chase Barnhart

It’s almost the new year. Crazy, right? 2022 is literally around the corner, yet is seems as if 2021 has just started. That is a hard concept to grasp, that time moves at the speed it does. Days, weeks, months, and even years fly by in the blink of an eye. For most of us in this time of year, the understanding of the rate at which time is moving causes us to question what we are to do within it.

You have probably heard the term, “New Year’s Resolution.” Every new year, we try to come up with the best ideas imaginable to make our lives better as time passes us by. We want to use the mark of January 1st as a checkpoint where we can say that we are effectively taking advantage of the time we have.

This is even more true for us Christians. Beyond being more healthy, working out, or making more time to read, Christians feel a weight in the new year to be the most spiritual people we possibly can be. I watch every year as believers from all over seek the new and best ways of being a Christian. Everyone hops into the newest Church trend. We all pick up the same best-selling Christian books. We even try to pray in new ways because maybe God likes these new formats better than the old ones. Christians want to be the best Christians in the new year.

Let me first say, this is not a bad thing. I love that the new year inspires the Church to be better. However, what I want to say is that sometimes our motivations, as believers, are placed in the wrong things. As Christians strive to hit the self-made status of “Super Christian,” they put their efforts into the wrong places. We all know that New Year’s resolutions almost never make it through the whole year, and the same is true with Christian resolutions. When we try to find the new and exciting, we disregard the “old ways” of being spiritual.

In this blog post I would like to argue that as we are coming into the new year, our job hasn’t changed. In fact, nothing has changed. When it comes to our being disciples of Jesus, we aren’t supposed to always find the new Christian trends and bandwagon onto them, but we are to see the original ways of being Spiritual and get better at them.

The new year always makes so many people question what their purpose is and how they can achieve it at the start of the year. We are blessed as Christians because we know what our purpose is. No, not what career we should do, or where we should live. Our purpose as disciples of Jesus is to daily become more like Christ. We should strive every single day to be molded into Christlikeness, because in doing so we all become our best selves. In being more like Jesus, we will be the full image of God, which is who we are created to be. We will begin to live lives that are more free and joyful. We will live lives that have absolute clarity because the direction we are heading is always towards Jesus, no matter what our outside circumstances are. And, in being more like Jesus (which is all God could ever want you to do as His disciple) you will naturally be able to bring others to Him. Notice in the Scriptures how people were naturally attracted to Jesus. Most non-disciples that He encountered either heard how He lived or saw how He lived and came to believe in Him because of it. I truly believe, and I find that the Word backs me up on this, that if we are living a life that resembles the one of Jesus, people will hear and see how we live and want to know the One that causes us to act like we do. Maybe the best form of evangelism in this new year is just you becoming who God knows you can be. Don’t try to hop on the new fix, but instead keep doing what you should have been doing all along, and I guarantee that you will be better off. Those you interact with will also be better off because they might see Jesus in you and come to know Him as you do.

So, where do we start? What does it look like to achieve Christlikeness? I find the book of Colossians as a good place to turn for this matter.

Colossians 2:6-7 says, “And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

It then continues in Colossians 3:12-17 with what that looks like to be rooted in Him. Those verses say, “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”

I urge every reader to consider this coming into the new year. Your job has not changed. The new trends and resolutions, whether Christian or not, are great. But, these things are not the ones that will ultimately make your lives better and give you purpose. What will make your life full is a deep rooted faith in Christ tied along with a discipleship that seeks to be more like Him each and every day.

We are all in this journey together. I am excited for the Church’s future when we all decide to take seriously the task we have been given.

-Chase Barnhart