Resolved: Our New Year’s Resolutions to Defend Your Liberty

A favorite family tradition takes place each New Year’s Eve. At dinner, our oldest daughter takes out a piece of paper that she’s been saving for a year – our list of last year’s resolutions. We read it, grade our performance over the past year, and then make new resolutions for the next year.

So what are some ACLJ resolutions for next year? With liberty under attack at home and abroad, what will we do?

RESOLVED: We shall continue to challenge the ObamaCare abortion pill mandate until the case reaches the Supreme Court. We shall not rest until the mandate is overturned or repealed.

RESOLVED: We shall continue our defense of Israel in international courts, in our legislature, and in the court of public opinion. We were grateful for success in 2012 as the International Criminal Court declined to prosecute brave Israeli soldiers for false and malicious war crimes charges, but we know the terrorist regimes of the Middle East are pressing forward in the UN to limit Israel’s right of self-defense. We will resist them at every turn.

RESOLVED: We will fight the increasing persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere. We begin the New Year by confronting the Iranian regime and bringing international pressure to free Pastor Youcef and Pastor Saeed. We are defending Egyptian Coptic Christians by working to defund Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The Gospel is the great hope of the world, and it must be heard.

RESOLVED: We will confront the Obama Administration whenever it disregards the law or fails to uphold its most basic constitutional responsibilities. In 2012, we led the charge for accountability in scandals from the Fast and Furious debacle to the Benghazi disaster.

RESOLVED: We shall defend life and religious freedom at home. In 2012 we worked hard to defund Planned Parenthood, we protected the rights of school children to share their faith, we protected Christian day cares from state regulators who tried to prohibit Bible verses, and we protected Christian college students who merely wished to meet and worship on campus. The cases go on and on, but our commitment to the First Amendment never wavers.

RESOLVED: We shall continue to speak truth into the marketplace of ideas. Legal battles are vital, but so are public debates. In 2012, through a record number of media appearances, Jay and Jordan and many others in the ACLJ were able to take their case directly to the American people, and the response has been overwhelming.

The Apostle Paul admonishes believers not to “grow weary of doing good,” but we know that our strength to accomplish our mission comes from God. Thus, our final resolution is perhaps our most important: We resolve to depend on God alone through the many challenges that lie ahead and to give glory to God alone for any successes that He is gracious enough to grant.

May God bless you and your family this New Year.