Press Towards The Mark

By Cheryl & Ed Henderson

Our scripture of the day is one of my favorites. It is amazing to me how God allows us to walk out the Word in our daily lives. We don't get to just read it, memorize it, or preach it, we get to live it and walk it out in real life!

The Apostle Paul was a very educated and very gifted Apostle but he also had a past that was not the greatest. He had persecuted Christians, mocked the faith, and had consented to Steven being stoned to death Acts 8:1. He knew first hand how important it was to forget those things that were behind. All of us have things in our past that we need to forget and the way to do that is to reach forth and press towards the things God has called each and every one of us to do in 2021.

In 1988 we moved from Memphis, TN to Jacksonville, FL. This was a major move for us and we really prayed about this situation and God gave us some direction from his Word that really helped. He reminded us that he had also required Abraham to move his family (Hebrews 11:8-15) to a place Abraham was not familiar with and a place that was to later become an inheritance for him and his family. There was one caution that God gave to Abraham and that was, don’t look back! Hebrews 11:15 states it like this, “And truly, if they had been mindful (to rehearse it over and over again in their minds) of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned”. Have you ever tried to drive an automobile forward while looking backward? Don’t try it; you will end up in a ditch!

There are a multitude of situations throughout the scriptures that showcase this principle such as the woman at the well (go tell the men); the woman caught in adultery (go and sin no more); the call of the fishermen Peter and Andrew (you will now be fishers of men). All of these situations involved a forgetting of those things behind and pressing toward the high calling.

One very important thing to remember; the enemy (Satan) is the accuser of the brethren. He is the one that will constantly rewind in your internal video recorder all the bad things of your past. God is just the opposite! When you ask for forgiveness, God cast your sins as far as the East is from the West (not measurable). He forgets them! He will never condemn you or beat you over the head with past sins.

It is time for many of you to bury the past and press toward the mark of the high calling. Let’s make 2021 the turning point. The point where we once and for all turn from the past and start sowing seeds for the future. The fields are white for the harvest and the harvest is calling out for laborers. God needs us to be focused and ready to move forward and touch the lives of people all across this nation.

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