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No Looking Back

    When things are difficult in life, we get tired. And when we get tired, we want to stop and rest. When someone hurts us, we want to stop and mourn. Don't get me wrong, there is a time for all of that. But we need to have the wisdom to discern when to stop and rest, and when to fight and push ahead.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. (NIV)

 Hebrews 10:26 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. (ESV)

    Satan likes to throw our circumstances and opposition in our faces and keep us so bogged down that we cannot see what the Lord wants to use us for. Satan targets those who are a threat and in the moments when they are most threatening. He does everything he can to keep us from doing anything good for the Kingdom. If you are being hit, take it as a compliment that he sees you as a danger to him! 

    Those attacks often hit us where it hurts and make us want to sit down and rest until the pain subsides. Resist that temptation!! Always be alert of what the Lord's will is and what is trying to stand in the way. Pick up the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith and keep on swinging (Ephesians 6)! There is work to be done.



Matthew 8:18-22  When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he instructed his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake.
Then one of the teachers of religious law said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.”
Another of his disciples said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.”
But Jesus told him, “Follow me now. Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead.” (NLT)

    I love this example of Jesus' heart for ministry. He was always looking ahead for what needed to be done. When this religious leader wanted to follow Jesus, He saw the man's heart. He couldn't fully follow Jesus because His heart was still in the past with his family who were not living in the faith. Jesus called this out as an issue before the man could even start to follow the Lord. Our King wants us in with our full hearts. What is holding you back?

    If we want to follow Jesus, we have to reach ahead and stop wasting time looking over our shoulders. We cannot change the past and we cannot change others. We can only control our actions and reactions. So take every opportunity to reach forward and change the world and extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.


Philippians 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead. (HCSB)

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