0 No Looking Back…

Now that we have entered a new year, we want to remind you friends to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead. Don’t let the enemy hold you back by keeping you focused on mistakes or failures. You can’t move forward if you’re focused on the rear-view mirror.

No matter how you’ve failed this past year, no matter how you’ve missed it, God’s love is greater. We are reminded how Peter betrayed Jesus in the Lord’s greatest hour of need. Nonetheless, God entrusted Peter with a leadership role in his newly established church because of Peter’s repentant heart.

Remember Paul who intensely persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. Despite this, God used Paul to write two-thirds of the New Testament. Paul did not let his past hold him back. Paul received God’s forgiveness and moved on. As he so wisely stated in Philippians 3:13-14:

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

We pray all God’s best for you and yours this new year. Know that he has a plan for your life and that plan is for good. Move into his best for you by forgetting what is behind and embracing the best yet to come. Blessings friends in this year of feasting and gladness.

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0 A Friend Who Sticks Closer than a Brother

Recently we were counseling with a young man who had fallen into a deep depression.  He had recently broken up with a girl that he loved very much.  According to him, she was the center of his world.  He told us that he had lost all desire to got to work, eat, and be around people.  He has spent his days in his room, sleeping as much as possible to escape reality.

The mistake this young man made is all too common and so easy for any of us to make.  He made another human being the center of his world.  He placed his hopes, dreams and satisfaction in life upon the shoulders of a girl.  For some of us it is not a human being that is the center of our world, but work.  I have known many people who found their worth and reason to exist in what they do for a living.  In hard financial times such as we live where thousands of people are being laid off from jobs and many more cannot find work, this is dangerous also.  Let me explain why.

Your life is like a wagon wheel.  A wagon wheel has a center hub that supports several spokes that protrude out of it to connect with the outer wheel.  The hub is the center of your world, your main focus.  The spokes represent all other aspects of your existence, such as work, romantic relationships, children, friendships, hobbies, interests, desires, etc.  So what happens when your hub is a person and they leave you?  Or what if work is your hub and you lose your job?  Without a doubt, your world will cave in.

So what or who should be the focus and center of your life to spare you this pain?  Very simply Jesus Christ.  Jesus plainly stated in Hebrews 13:5 that “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  In another place, the Bible calls Him “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).  If you make Jesus the center of your life, everything can collapse around you, some spokes can fall out of the wheel, but you will still be standing because He will never leave you nor forsake you.  And even more, He will help you through trouble and put right those other parts of your life that are hurting you. 

Paul recognized this secret to a satisfying and fulfilling life when he wrote Philippians 4:12-14:

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  

I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

I encourage you today to refocus and recommit all you are to God.  You will never regret keeping Him as the center of your life.

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