Blogger Note: Once again I'm posting this blog one day ahead of the date listed due to our travel schedule as we have ended our cruise to Alaska. My devotionals have been sweet and deep during our travels, and very personal, as is this one. I pray that others will be touched by God in some special way. ... wrb
Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to once again take in a video of Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing All Is Well, with the reality of our hope in Christ, looking forward in Him rather than into our selfish past.
Highlight Passage Psalm 77: 10-11 [NKJV] …
10 And I said, “This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most Hight; … surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
… Our focus, with thanksgiving, on all the greatness of God, … past, present, and surely future!!
============
Highlight Context - Psalm 77: 1-15 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Too easy to focus on the past hurts … but we must look forward past the past.
============
Reference Passage #1 - Lamentations 3: 22-23 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK ...
… Focusing on God’s mercies … new every morning !!!
Reference Passage #2 - Luke 9: 23 [NKJV] …
17 Then He said to His followers, … If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
… Let’s move forward, not dwelling in the rear-view mirror, … looking through the windshield at what lies ahead.
Reference Passage #3 - 2nd Corinthians 5: 17 [NKJV] …
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
… No reason to focus on the past … for we are NEW in Christ … everyday.
Reference Passage #4 - Galatians 2: 20 [NKJV] …
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
… Let the past go … and focus on our future in Christ.
Reference Passage #4 - Philippians 3: 13-14 [NKJV] …
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
… Let’s move on!!
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, David C. McCasland, used a story of William Zinsser, and author, who returned to the sight of his boyhood home on the shore in Long Island … to discover that it was no longer there, but merely a hole in the ground. Disheartened he walked on the beach near his former seaside home and took in the beautiful sight of the ocean and God’s creation there; and Zinsser wrote of the experience: I was at ease and only slightly saddened. The view was intact and the unique configuration of land and sea I remembered so well that I could still dream of it.
And that is being able, as McCasland’ writes in ODB today, to “see beyond the loss.” We all experience loss in our lives; and many Christians, such as I, do not morn the loss. We gladly look beyond our past because the past is not worthy our dwelling or holding on to it. That’s what a “cardboard testimony” celebrates (see 2nd Cor. 5: 17 and Gal. 2: 20). A cardboard testimony is where one write a phrase expressing what life was like “BEFORE” Christ and then on the other side of the cardboard what it has become like “AFTER” Christ (see attached photo).
Most Christians find it easier to do cardboard testimonies of looking beyond the past than others who must look beyond some hurtful loss, such as the death of a dear one, or a wonderful memory lost - as with William Zinssler’s story. But In Christ we are new; and as I’ve often said to those I mentor or disciple, “One simply must not try to drive onward in life looking only into the rear-view mirror.”
And today, I pray that we’ll all look to where God is leading us, not where He’s had us in the past, remember that His place glory lies ahead (see Philippians 3: 13-14).
My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … Help me to keep my eyes on the prize - Your prize!! Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
No comments:
Post a Comment