A Nugget from New Life Network
Scripture for the Day (January 1, 2016)
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)
I had just recently been saved in 1982 and my Pastor asked me one night (with no warning) to stand and pray for the service. I was petrified! I stood up and mumbled a few words but they were mostly unintelligible. When I sat down, the enemy jumped all over me. “You see, you can’t even pray! This Christian thing is never going to work for you”!
When I got home that night I was a mess. I shut myself in my bedroom and started to pray. Thank goodness we can talk to God! That night, I heard God speak to me for the first time and this is what I heard. “Why are you so concerned about not praying a beautiful prayer? You are more concerned with what I haven’t finished in your life than what I’ve already done.” I started to think about that and God was right (as he always is). I had been delivered from alcohol, translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of light, was going to Heaven and not Hell, and I was all down in the dumps and depressed about not being able to pray in public.
The only time you and I should be looking back is to see how far God has brought us. Don’t let the enemy condemn you for your past or for what God is not finished with yet. The angels told Lot and his wife to leave Sodom (the city of sin) and not look back. She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19). God told Abraham to move to a strange new country and he obeyed, not looking back (Hebrews 11:8-9). Had Abraham looked back the scripture said he would have had an opportunity to have returned and he and his family would have missed God’s blessing (Hebrews 11:15). Paul said he had to forget those things that were behind (the things that were not of God) and press toward the prize. The men and women of faith had to do the same thing to reach their God destination and this is why they did it:
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a City. (Hebrews 11:16)
Do you desire a better place in 2016 than you had in 2015? I do! Let’s all press toward the mark. Let’s not look back except to see how far God has brought us all. Let’s be thankful for a New Year with God, our families, and the people God has put in our paths to minister to. God has already prepared a place of blessing for all of us. We just need to press on, and not look back.
Have a Blessed New Year!!!!!
