Resolutions
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV (Monthly Watchword for January 2026)
This month’s Watchword (theme verse) comes from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah (sometimes called the “Pentateuch” among Christians), which is the most sacred part of the Hebrew/Jewish Scriptures. What’s more, this part of chapter 6 has special significance for them as a people. Christians are accustomed to using statements of faith called “creeds,” as in the Apostles’ Creed. It has been said that this part of Deuteronomy 6 is the Jewish equivalent to such a creed. It is known by the Hebrew title shema, meaning “hear,” or “listen”:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The turn of the year is often a time for resolutions, positive changes in life we hope to carry forward into the coming months. Most often, these New Year resolutions pertain to our health, but they might also have to do with other habits and personal relationships. In this way, the words of the shema from Deuteronomy 6 can prod us to greater focus on God’s presence in our lives this year, on the importance of prayer and faith expression not only on Sundays, but also in the home.
Resolutions are good things. They are reminders to us of how we as people are always a work in progress. At the same time, we learn to approach resolutions with humility. If we are honest, we acknowledge the difficulty in keeping our resolutions. How easy it is to forget them when life gets busy!
I never want to discourage anyone from making New Year resolutions. Even if we don’t or can’t keep them perfectly, there is value in working to improve ourselves. Our definition of “success” sometimes needs to be reworked. We might find that our initial goals were too ambitious. But even modest progress is still progress, and that can be an encouraging thought.
Then we come to January’s Watchword, which is one part of the shema, and upon hearing these words, we might find ourselves discouraged: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. In the New Testament, Jesus lifts up this commandment as the greatest of all.
To be honest, working to lose weight or get more exercise is easy compared to this! This command to love God with everything in us reveals to us a harsh reality. A central truth of our Christian faith is that such a command is not possible for us to fulfill. Human sin is precisely the inability to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and might. If we could do so, then we would have no need for a Savior. We would have no need for what Jesus does for us.
This command from God speaks His law to us in a powerful way, and it reveals our poverty of spirit. We know that our own resolutions will not meet our deepest need. Rather, God resolves to provide for our deepest need. Whenever we hear God’s commands, we must always remember that they are preceded by God’s resolution about us. The Ten Commandments, for example, found in Exodus 20, actually begin not with a command but with a resolution about us declared by God: I am the Lord your God. When we understand God’s resolve to be our Lord, we also know the call that God places on our lives to know Him more deeply and walk in His ways.
Christian life always involves living in the tension between knowing God’s will and knowing our human weakness. This year, as we make our resolutions, we take joy in the resolution that God has made about us to be our Lord, to meet us in our weakness, to uplift us by His grace, which first came to dwell among us (John 1:14) through the coming of Jesus Christ among us.
Pr. Tom Jacobson
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV (Monthly Watchword for January 2026)
This month’s Watchword (theme verse) comes from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah (sometimes called the “Pentateuch” among Christians), which is the most sacred part of the Hebrew/Jewish Scriptures. What’s more, this part of chapter 6 has special significance for them as a people. Christians are accustomed to using statements of faith called “creeds,” as in the Apostles’ Creed. It has been said that this part of Deuteronomy 6 is the Jewish equivalent to such a creed. It is known by the Hebrew title shema, meaning “hear,” or “listen”:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The turn of the year is often a time for resolutions, positive changes in life we hope to carry forward into the coming months. Most often, these New Year resolutions pertain to our health, but they might also have to do with other habits and personal relationships. In this way, the words of the shema from Deuteronomy 6 can prod us to greater focus on God’s presence in our lives this year, on the importance of prayer and faith expression not only on Sundays, but also in the home.
Resolutions are good things. They are reminders to us of how we as people are always a work in progress. At the same time, we learn to approach resolutions with humility. If we are honest, we acknowledge the difficulty in keeping our resolutions. How easy it is to forget them when life gets busy!
I never want to discourage anyone from making New Year resolutions. Even if we don’t or can’t keep them perfectly, there is value in working to improve ourselves. Our definition of “success” sometimes needs to be reworked. We might find that our initial goals were too ambitious. But even modest progress is still progress, and that can be an encouraging thought.
Then we come to January’s Watchword, which is one part of the shema, and upon hearing these words, we might find ourselves discouraged: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. In the New Testament, Jesus lifts up this commandment as the greatest of all.
To be honest, working to lose weight or get more exercise is easy compared to this! This command to love God with everything in us reveals to us a harsh reality. A central truth of our Christian faith is that such a command is not possible for us to fulfill. Human sin is precisely the inability to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and might. If we could do so, then we would have no need for a Savior. We would have no need for what Jesus does for us.
This command from God speaks His law to us in a powerful way, and it reveals our poverty of spirit. We know that our own resolutions will not meet our deepest need. Rather, God resolves to provide for our deepest need. Whenever we hear God’s commands, we must always remember that they are preceded by God’s resolution about us. The Ten Commandments, for example, found in Exodus 20, actually begin not with a command but with a resolution about us declared by God: I am the Lord your God. When we understand God’s resolve to be our Lord, we also know the call that God places on our lives to know Him more deeply and walk in His ways.
Christian life always involves living in the tension between knowing God’s will and knowing our human weakness. This year, as we make our resolutions, we take joy in the resolution that God has made about us to be our Lord, to meet us in our weakness, to uplift us by His grace, which first came to dwell among us (John 1:14) through the coming of Jesus Christ among us.
Pr. Tom Jacobson
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