Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We came across this story, about a man who was slowly losing his memory. After a lengthy examination, the doctor said that a risky operation on his brain might reverse his condition and restore his memory. However, the surgery would be so delicate that a nerve could be severed, causing total blindness.
The surgeon asked, "So, which would you rather have, your sight or your memory?" The man pondered the question for a while and replied, "My sight, because I would rather see where I am going than remember where I have been."
Our enemy is always trying to dig up the past and keep us all bound up in our failures. But be encouraged! Today is a new day! Today and every day we have a choice to make! Like Paul, we must choose to press forward and put aside our past. We must purpose to keep our eyes on the Lord, not on our successes or failures, but upon on what can we do for Him today!
Be free from the shackles of the past! Keep your eyes on the prize!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]The Hebrew word for a dried up river bed is "Nachal". Israel has many of these. Here, in Israel it rains in winter, but not in summer. In the summer, these places stand as a testament of the rains that once fell and of the rains yet to come. Then, when they do come, the Nechalim (nachal plural) almost instantly fill with water. This is what the Scripture means when it says, "I will give you rivers in the desert." There is a promise in that for us.
In 1917, the Ottoman Empire controlled the city of Aqaba which seemed impregnable to any attack. Behind the city in every direction was a vast desert, and overlooking the city’s harbor were huge naval guns protecting it against any enemy attack from the sea.
During the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe rained down about thirty-five thousand bombs upon London during nightly air raids, causing terrifying fear and tremendous destruction and mayhem in large parts of London.
A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of two hundred, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands immediately started going up.
The revivalist D.L. Moody was on vacation in England from his ministry in Chicago. At one point during his sabbatical there, a local pastor prevailed upon Moody to speak at his parish church. So D.L. went to preach the next Sunday morning. That afternoon he recorded in his journal that it was the deadest crowd he had ever seen and the only thing worse than preaching to those people was that he had promised to speak again the same night.
Yesterday, my family and I had the privilege of being among the nearly 300,000 individuals at the March for Israel event in Washington, D.C. As many in the crowd stood in solidarity with Israel, I reflected on our role as believers. In these last days, we are simply called to be watchmen on the walls.
Over the years I’ve often gotten emails asking “Do you think revival will ever come to the United States?, When do you think it will come?” While re-reading Charles Finney’s lectures on revival recently, I was reminded that a key aspect of world revival is revival within ourselves.