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No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:13-14
“What was I thinking?”
Has that thought ever gone through your head? Maybe you’ve even said it out loud to yourself or others listening. We all have those days, those times when we look at ourselves from the outside and, frankly, can’t believe the action we’ve taken, the words we’ve spoken or the thought/attitude that has crossed our mind.
Let’s face it. Our humanity fails us. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Romans 7, where Paul expresses his own personal frustration with himself. ‘The things I hate I find myself doing, the things I desperately want to do or be known for I fail to do…daily!” (My paraphrase)
So, how do we move on? What steps can we take to remedy the situation? After all, we know there will be some who will take our failings as an opportunity to judge us and to constantly hold our failure against us.
I love what Paul says in Philippians regarding failure. Basically, (again my paraphrase) he is telling us, ‘Stuff happens, we fail, sometimes miserably. People will judge us, condemn us and criticize us, but move on.’
It amazes me how many Bible people failed. They were dishonest. They lied to cover up their own mistakes. They were cowards. They ignored specific commands of God to try to further their own agenda, oftentimes at the expense of others.
Paul isn’t saying we don’t try to make things right. When we’ve wronged others, we need to try to make amends. When we’ve failed we need to put boundaries in place to keep us accountable and protect us from making the same mistakes. But then we need to move on.
The new year is a great time to look back over the previous year and evaluate the path you have taken. What things can you do better?
What things need to be corrected?
What relationships need to be mended?
What relationships need to be ended or at least put on hold?
Are you closer to Christ now than you were a year ago?
When Paul says, ‘forgetting the past and looking forward’ I don’t think he said that flippantly. I think he looked back at the past, made up a plan to make corrections and then he moved on. He didn’t dwell on his failures, he used them as stepping stones to a better tomorrow.
As the calendar flips to a new year, what things do you need to learn from? What things do you need to let go? How can the Holy Spirit help you? Who can you seek out as an accountability partner to walk through life with you?
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
What’s robbing you of your joy? I love the story of Christmas and all it’s plots that we may miss. Take Mary for instance. She was a young teenager in an obscure town. Her only hope for claim to fame would be marrying the man of her dreams.
Then the angel showed up and everything changed. She found out she was pregnant, but not by Joseph, by the Holy Spirit. From that point forward her life would never be the same. Yet what amazes me is her attitude. She doesn’t scoff in unbelief. She doesn’t argue with God about His decision. She sings a new song of praise and joy!
Too often we allow things in our lives to rob us of joy. Unmet expectations, criticism, negative self-talk, failure and more can take away the joy God wants us to have.
In Paul’s letter to the Roman believers he prays that they (and us) would experience joy and peace. Simply stated, peace is that attitude we have about what’s going on around us. We can be full of fear or faith, we can act in courage or hide in despair, we can move forward or slip back to where we were.
Joy on the other hand is an attitude of the heart. Peace relates to the external, joy empowers the internal. So, where to we get joy? When life goes south, when those you trusted abandon you, when life deals you a critical blow it’s hard to have joy in your own strength.
You can’t just decide to be joyful. But that’s where God comes in through the power of Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is control of our minds our focus changes from despair to joy.
Our enemy Satan works overtime to find ways to kill our joy. He knows we are forgiven. He knows we will be in heaven someday if we have accepted Jesus. He can’t change our destiny, but he can change our outlook if we let him.
Don’t allow life circumstances to kill your joy. God’s Holy Spirit is ready to fill you with joy, but not just any joy, joy overflowing. Imagine that. By relying on the Holy Spirit you overflow with joy and when you do some of that joy will touch those around you.
For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Ephesians 2:14 NLT
Without Christmas there would be no Easter. Without sacrifice there can be no forgiveness. Without love, there can be no unity. Without unity there can be no peace.
Hours before Jesus was brutally murdered he knelt in the garden to pray. He prayed for strength for the upcoming test of endurance. He prayed for a way out. He prayed for the unity of his followers.
He could have prayed for our courage since we would experience hatred because of his name and even be killed because we were his followers. But he didn’t. He prayed for unity.
It’s important to remember that unity does not mean uniformity. He never asked that we would think alike, act alike, speak alike and like all the same things. In fact, one of his followers, the Apostle Paul, says that divisions among us can be useful for the health of the body (1 Corinthians 11:19).
Jesus prayed for us to be unified because he knew the Father was a God of creativity. While we are all made in his image, we are certainly different from one another! How boring would life be if everything in nature was green. The grass, the water, the sky, the rocks the trees?
God knew what he was doing when he created us in his image and consequently with a creative component. Ironically, perhaps, it’s our differences that make unity beautiful. I like to think of unity in the way illustrated by an orchestra. Each instrument playing its part but in harmony with those around it.
Jews and gentiles? Gay and Straight? Black or white? Republican or Democrat? The body of Christ is made up of all of these. The unifying factor isn’t heritage or denomination or ethnicity or orientation. The unifying factor is Jesus. The result is peace on earth and goodwill to those in whose God finds favor.
Jesus came to be the example of how we can live in unity. His birth in the manger was to be one with us. His death and resurrection destroyed the walls of hostility so that, different as we are, we can live in solidarity because of him. Unity is not uniformity, but unity is peace and peace is power.
O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love. His redemption overflows. Psalms 130:7
It’s Christmas! For us as parents and grandparents it’s a ‘most wonderful time of the year.’ We look forward to seeing our children. We look forward to visits and hugs from the grandchildren. We anticipate the joy of the opening of brightly colored, wrapped packages.
But for many of us there is dark side to the picture, especially in our current economic situation. While we want to give our loved ones everything their hearts desire, there are limits to our ability to give.
I remember a couple of years growing up when my dad, a pastor at the time, would go to the Christmas tree stand on Christmas Eve to get our tree because they were either free or at a greatly reduced cost. He did the best he could with the limitations he had as an underpaid pastor with a family of five boys to feed and get gifts for.
Limits are hard. That’s why we dream of winning the lottery. Wouldn’t it be nice to be unlimited in what we could buy or do?
Human hope is limited. Not Godly hope. Human hope is dependent on the ability of others or ourselves to meet our dreams. Not Godly hope.
When we put our hope on the creator/sustainer of the universe the sky is the limit. It just keeps going. Need peace. He’s got more than you can imagine. Need forgiveness? You’ll never be able to use it up. Need some love? His love is higher that the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest sea.
This Christmas season, put your hope in the one who has unlimited resources available to you through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope. Psalms 119:114
Do you have trouble throwing away those ‘love letters’ from long ago? Perhaps a card, or a note scribbled on paper from someone you love. Perhaps you even take them out from time to time when you are feeling hopeless because they remind you that even though life around you seems to be falling apart, you have this one gentle reminder that life will be okay, that the things that are troubling you are a blip on the screen of life.
Some look at the Bible as a confusing book that’s hard to understand. I look at it as a love letter. A friend of mine told me of a time her husband was deployed overseas. She was home with the kids. This was before internet and instantaneous, global communication.
When a letter arrived from her husband, the world stopped. She would sit and read it carefully. It was almost as if he were there. It was a reminder of hope. It was a reminder that this struggle was temporary. It was a reminder that she was making it and soon he would rejoin them.
The Psalmist paints that kind of picture of God’s word. Oh, the Bible is full of deep theological truths to be sure, but the overriding theme is a love story of a God who earnestly wants you to enjoy his company. Immanuel, God with us.
Some day, he’ll return in physical presence. Until then we have a love letter of hope. May His Word fill you with hope this Advent season and beyond.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 