Pressing On!!

Phil 3:12-14

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 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, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Favored to win the gold medal in women’s figure skating in the Winter Olympics, 1984, Rosalyn Sumners returned to America with a silver instead. A performance marked by her accustomed skill in the long program would have won the gold. Rosalyn explained the failure by saying that while she had wanted to be the best, she had not been willing to practice until she proved it. Perhaps her coach was partly to blame. Having detected Rosalyn’s lethargy, she should have reminded her that she would be good enough only after the competition.

We have reached a new milestone at the Abilities Church.  God has given us this beautiful new facility to worship in.  Now it would be easy for us to settle down and rest on our laurels. But this is dangerous because we need to always be pressing forward.  Paul was quite accomplished when he wrote these words.  After all he had been one of the most zealous leaders in Judaism before his conversion and he had risen to be a very important leader in the early Church shortly after his conversion.  He surely could rest on his laurels.  But he said I am forgetting the past.  That past includes good and bad things.  The reason why we need to put the past behind us is that there is a human tendency to think that we’ve “made it” we’ve achieved when we look at where we come from. This is not to say that the past is unimportant or we shouldn’t remember the past - but it is to say that the past cannot become a resting post that stops us from going forward.  We always have to move on and look forward to what God is going to do next.  

Therefore in 2010 lets not only thank God for what he has done for the Abilities Church, but lets keep looking forward to what God is going to do in the future expecting that God has great things ahead for us.