Here is the devotional quote from the Upper Room this morning:
ALL CHANGE INVOLVES leaving behind something known in order to move toward the new and unknown. It means releasing the way things were in order to embrace the way things are and the way things will be. … Understanding our past is important, but our lives are meant to be lived in the present and into the future.
- Leigh Harrison
Birthed in Prayer: Pregnancy as a Spiritual Journey
As I sit here finishing the first whole week at my new appointment here at Calvary, I am definitely aware of this. And beyond that, just thinking of all the changes in my life in the past year! Getting married. Setting up home together. Getting a new appointment. Change is not only about leaving behind, it's also a lot of work!
My sermon this Sunday takes as its Scripture Luke 9:57-62 where Jesus has three interactions with would-be disciples. The tension in the story is whether they can leave behind the old, even family, and move forward totally committed as Jesus' disciple.
Christians as individuals but also as a community (and in each local church) face the same challenge. We hold onto the past out of fear, and our fear cripples our growth. And that which does not grow dies.
This is a constant question I ask of myself and those around me in ministry (whether directly or indirectly)...are our lives, actions and decisions motivated by faithfully following Jesus, or anxiously holding on to the past? Sadly, often we find ourselves holding into the past, and in doing so, we are not able to embrace all that God is doing and calling us to.
May today be a day of some letting go and moving forward for all of us.
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