Pastor's Pen

^{Are you driving through life looking through the rear view mirror?} 

You might wonder what you mean by this Pastor.  Life has challenges that often cause us to reflect back to our last fall, our last mistake, or our last disappointment. When we draw back and allow ourselves to be consumed with our failures, disappointments and past mistakes; we are in essence driving through life looking back through our rear view mirror.  The Bible tells us when we put our hands to the plow looking back we are not fit for the Kingdom of GOD.  In other words don't allow your past to become your future, or should I put it this way your focal point.  The Devil is not fighting you over your past but your future. His job is to remind you of your past to keep you from pursuing your future. While God is investing in your future to give you an expected end (Jer.29:11), He wants you to get back up after a fall. Paul summed it up this way; "but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,"  (Philippians 3:13b).  Paul completely forgot about those past experiences, failures, disappointments and focused on what was ahead of him. 

"If you do what you always done, you're going to get what you're always got". If you want something different you got to do something different.  If you keep doing the same old thing over and over and expect a different result; that's a fool on the verge of insanity. If you want something different you need to do something different. Are you driving through life looking through your rear view mirror? Be careful because you just might wreck.

There are a few things you can do to help maintain focus.

Read your Bible more, and have a set time each day you sit down to read your Bible. Let nothing stand in the way of the time you spend with God. This is called renewing your mind. What you put in your mind affects your focus; so we should concentrate more on what we put into our mind (Romans 12:1-3).  If we find ourselves meditating on evil or bad things, guess what we are going to want to do? You're right, bad things. We need to cast down those thoughts and replace them with more positive thoughts of ourselves succeeding (2Cor. 10:4-5). The more we do this the better we become at it; practice make perfect. At first you may still find yourself fighting this thought pattern, but with time it will become automatic. This is renewing your mind. Praise God anyhow, things will get better if you stay with it. That's the key, stay with it, don't give up! There is a silver lining behind every dark cloud. May God give you focus, purpose, and determination to forget the past and press forward unto the future. No one drives a car forward looking back in the rearview mirror, why? Because they will wreck. Well, that's exactly what we do when we focus on the past events of our lives, we wreck... The Bible says Press forward toward the prize of the high calling of God. Phil.3:13-14. Let us begin today pressing forward, renewing our minds, and stop looking in the rearview mirror. God Bless you. Be sure to spend a little time each day with the Master, by opening your Bible at the same time. He is waiting for you.