I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and you’re looking forward to the New Year!

With the calendar year changing and giving us a fresh start, it coincides with the ending of the football season. College football has one more bowl game, along with the Championship left on the schedule, while the NFL has one more week in their regular season.

For many football teams, they’re looking back at their season wishing things had gone differently and trying to determine what changes can be made moving forward.

Every team begins a new season with good intentions. They intend to win every game, win their division, make the playoffs, develop players, and grow throughout the year.

However, during press conferences when things don’t go the way they intended, coaches and players often admit they didn’t execute.

Even though they intended to get the ball in the end zone, it didn’t happen, and the results weren’t what they planned, desired, expected, or aimed to achieve.

Many of us have probably taken an inventory of our own lives in 2021 and are now excited about making changes for 2022.

The reality is, we relate to football teams because we most likely didn’t execute on every one of our personal goals and didn’t follow through on certain things we intended to happen.

So, here we are at the start of the year with new intentions. We intend to eat better, exercise more, have a better work-life balance, drop some bad habits, and finish our to-do list.

More importantly, we’re hopefully planning to seek God, desiring to live for Him, expecting to serve and give more, and aiming to become more like Jesus.

With this in mind, we may aspire to intentionally get plugged in at church or read our Bible more or pray on a regular basis.

As commendable as these goals are, how will this year be truly different from last year…and how will we execute on what we intend to?

First, we have to determine if our desires and motivations to accomplish, implement, fulfill, complete, and achieve actually come from God and are aligned with His purposes, plans, and desires for us.

Secondly, the key to executing is trusting in His power instead of our own.

2 Peter 1:3-9 (NLT) tells us, “By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence.

“And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

“The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.”

This shows us how we execute living the godly life. Likewise, we must understand the importance of experiencing an “execution,” which means putting to death our old life.

Paul declares in Galatians 2:20 (NLT), ”My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

As followers of Jesus, this is our reality.

Paul also tells us in Ephesians 3:20 (NLT), “Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

This year, let’s “live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God” and relying on “His mighty power at work within us.”

In addition, let’s remember what Jesus says in John 15:5 (AMP): ”I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.”

With Jesus, we will “execute” infinitely more than we could ever “intend” to do on our own.

I’m Bryce Johnson and you can UNPACK that!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I’m thankful that my former life has been executed and I have been crucified with Christ. I pray that I would get out of the way and allow Your power within me to accomplish everything You have planned for me this year. I pray I would bear much fruit and live the life you’ve called me to live. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

Discussion Questions for PACKS:

1. What are your intentions for 2022?

2. How do these verses help you understand how to approach the New Year?