It’s Friday…It’s Time To Move Forward

The New Year is off to a turbulent start, huh? Darcy, my wife, forwarded me the following post that reflects the sentiment of regret perhaps of many today: “I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2021. I’ve experienced the free 7-Day Trial and I’m not interested.”

Ah, regrets. It’s easy to live with them, isn’t it? Some people are never able to look back, but most of us can point to a few decisions that keep us wondering what life would have been if we’ve done things differently. Those kinds of thoughts can cripple us. They haunt us and keep us preoccupied with the past.

Two truths will keep the past from stealing our joy in the present: our identification with Jesus and our faith in God’s Sovereignty. The enemy will seize the opportunity to remind us of our failures and accuse us of disobedience. He may be right, of course, but we aren’t living on the basis of what we have or haven’t done. As people who have given our lives to Jesus, we live fully identified with Him. We stand before God on the basis of what Jesus has done.

A firm conviction that God is Sovereign will also protect us from our regrets. Even when we’ve made missteps, we can trust that God knew about them before the foundation of the world and planned to compensate accordingly. Nothing we’ve done has surprised Him. He has known all along how to bring us in line with His Will – even when we’ve walked away from it.

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

God never asked us to check the rearview mirror in order to grieve over our shortcomings. We confessed when we gave our life to Jesus that we were sinful failures, and He redeemed us. It’s Time To Move Forward.

So, let ask ourselves, do memories of the past year or longer hound us? If so, let’s take an active stance against them. Let’s point the enemy to Jesus as the basis of our righteousness – the accusations of the enemy are irrelevant once we’ve found our identity in God’s perfect Son. And let’s not forget the Sovereignty of God. Let’s find heroes of the faith in Scripture who failed – it’s a pretty easy task – and see how God sovereignly worked out His purposes in their lives in spite of their failures. Let’s rest in the present and look forward with hope. Nothing in our past can thwart God’s plan in our lives. Absolutely Nothing.

Have a pleasurable weekend. Make it a priority to worship The LORD with those who have placed their trust fully in the Sovereignty of God. They know without a doubt that their failure is not final because their identity is now found in Christ.

All For Jesus – Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else.

“He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6:15b-16)