Looking Forward
Are you looking forward to 2023?
2022 is behind us.
Thank God.
I don’t think that year has too much good to look back on.
AND
Looking back at it will ONLY help us if we are doing so to remember the lessons we learned from the mistakes we made.
Also, ifwe are looking back to the good things of our past year, it is a good way take our focus off of creating new good things to build on for this next year.
So, it would seem healthy to have something we can center our attention on to look forward to.
Paul agrees.
He tells us in the scriptures, that we don’t need to look back, because God has already given us something to be looking forward to.
☆ But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
• Philippians 3:13-14
Looking forward to;
The goal of the prize.
The upward call of GOD in Christ Jesus.
WHAT is that?
That, as Paul is talking in this passage, is to live
– More like,
– More for and
– More with
Christ
as we move
– More towards
our eternal destination.
That is a huge objective.
It is also a huge calling for a life.
That ‘overall’ prize should be our big picture cause.
As ‘WHAT’s’ go, that is the best WHAT out there.
Why?
Because God told us so.
Because God has promised us HE has plans for us.
So, we can take that overall plan, and look forward to it.
We need not look back on anything.
☆ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
• Jeremiah 29:11
So, our upward call of God in Jesus Christ, to get the Prize is our ‘WHAT’.
Now we need to know the ‘HOW’
This is where we ask God to tell us HOW to achieve that WHAT.
Men,
We need to know that we all have been custom made…by hand…Gods hand.
HE personally made us all, and each of us HE made with our own individual skills.
Skills for us to look forward to using to make disciples.
That is our HOW.
We all, like fingerprints, have been given a very personal way to be looking forward to carrying out HIS bigger picture, in our own small way.
☆ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do
• Ephesians 2:10
Like the potter He is, God created us individually, with a goal, and a specific way to reach that goal, as our purpose for being, before he even created us.
When we are aware of that fact, that God has had a plan for us before we were even born, it produces an excitement for us that we have something to be looking forward to.
Not looking behind us.
Not depressed, guilty or, shameful about.
So
Let us keep our eyes on the path ahead of us this year,
Let us remember the past only to learn from, not to dwell on,
Let us be men who are looking forward to what God has in store for this new year,
For HE has given us the choice to be an active participant in it all…WITH HIM.
I love you guys!
