Thinking Right

There must come a time for the believer to forget those things that are behind and to press on towards the mark- heaven, our hope. I have through my journey here on earth found people with views on how confident they feel we should be with our abilities that obviously God has given us to achieve goals and prove ourselves as go-getters. To believe and then conquer would be their motto. We are what we are because that is where we are all, all because of the grace of God. If God has allowed me to go on in areas of my life and I have found obedience to press on, then God has allowed me to press on. However, one can be very easily lured into the trap of pride. Any form of justification that ignores the work by the Lord Jesus on the cross at Calvary must be categorize in life library and filed with the works of the flesh under sub heading of Pride. May God help us to find sustenance in the Lord Jesus and nothing else? Yet even if we have something in which we feel we could boast, our beloved apostle Paul reminds us about his achievements and then concludes like this in Philippians 3:7-9 “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory looks back upon past sins, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no dread of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of his people to the last jot and tittle, and received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute can ever be cast into hell. It seems to be one of the very principles of our enlightened nature to believe that God is just; we feel that it must be so, and this gives us our terror at first; but is it not marvellous that this very same belief that God is just, becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace! If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished. God must change his nature before one soul, for whom Jesus was a substitute, can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the law. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Not God, for he hath justified; not Christ, for he hath died, “yea rather hath risen again.” My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen.”

C.H.Spurgeon

Having now quoted Spurgeon and agreeing with all that he has said to be true. I know my own heart, how it wrestlers against this truth. When I look at my life and the mistakes I have accumulated over my journey with time, it almost robs me of the truth of Christ’s accomplishment on that cruel Roman cross. It almost has victory, but He is greater than my failures, He is greater than my bad choices, He is greater than anything that can come against me, and I mean anything, yes even ourselves. With that in mind let us be gripped with this mindset; 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.

What is done is done, it has been recorded, and nothing we say or do will change that. However, we can find grace to press on just as Paul encourages us to press on forgetting those things that are behind, good or bad, happy or sad. Today is the day of salvation, let us not harden our hearts but with grateful hearts remember our Saviour and His accomplishments, let our eyes drift from our own pity filled lives as we gaze on the majestic work of Calvary, and how majestic those works are, praise the glorious name of Jesus. Thank you Father for sending your Son and giving us the ability to see heaven and the hope you have set before us.

Signing off

Tyrone