Focus

Pay attention to the tension in your body. Let go of it and any expectations to do anything other than God’s will today. Prepare yourself to hear God’s word.

Read

Reflect

We people and churches tend to get stuck in the past, whether the past was good or bad. Some people refuse to do something new because it threatens what has been good, maybe even great. I mean, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.”

But what about the bad things we hold on to so tightly? You might think that a new fresh start would be encouraging to people whose past has been bad. Sometimes churches dwell on past failures. The church thinks of the past and is afraid to try something new because you can recount all the times the new things have failed. We cling to the same excuses.

In Philippians 3:8-9, Paul speaks of all his credentials, all of the good things he has done, even his errors of persecuting the church. Paul speaks of his past by saying, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

This is what it means for you to lose your life for Christ’s sake. A church can do the same thing. We consider the past as rubbish, let the past die, and rise to the new thing God is doing among us.

Pray

Lord help us to move past our success and failures as we seek to follow your new path. Amen