We tend to think of the beginning of a new calendar year as a time of new beginnings. We make New Year’s resolutions and plan on getting rid of bad habits and starting new good habits. We plan to lose weight, get more exercise, and do all sorts of things to improve ourselves. Unfortunately, often our good intentions fall by the wayside and we end up with an old, recycled year instead of a new, better year. When we end up in the new year acting just as we did in the old year it may be disappointing to us, but unless we have some really bad habits we need to get rid of, it won’t be all that bad. But when we fail to grow and get better as Christians this can have serious consequences. In Hebrews 5:12-14 the Hebrew writer condemns his readers’ lack of progress. He points out that by the time of his writing they should be teachers of others, but instead, they need to be re-taught the basics of Christianity. What we as Christians should do is “leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Hebrews 6:1). In Ephesians 4:14-16 we read, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Let us work to really make this a “new” year and work to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18).