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Goodbye 2011 from Transformation Thurrock
from http://utmost.org - the Oswald Chambers daily devotionals' website
 Yesterday
31 December
The God of Israel will be your reward. — Isaiah 52:12
Security from Yesterday. “God requireth that which is past.” At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.
Security for To-morrow. “For the Lord will go before you.” This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward [sic]. God’s hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.
Security for To-day. “For ye shall not go out with haste.” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.
Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.
>>> 2012 is a significant year for the world, our nation, and the borough of Thurrock. Looking ahead, there's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London 2012 Games, and GSUS LIVE, as well as the continuing challenge of following up from Rock Thurrock.
>>> This is the kairos time for the church to step up to the plate, and be prepared to give itself away, to spend itself on behalf of others - to die to itself and to the world, and come fully alive in Christ, the Body's Head, the King of the Kingdom, the Bridegroom of the Bride.
>>> Pray in the New Year with More Than Gold using the resources here: http://www.morethangold.org.uk/your-church/prayer.html
>>> Today's photo depicts looking back as the past recedes; tomorrow's, looking forward as the future slips into the ever-present plain-as-day now.
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Oswald Chambers and Tim Harrold, 31/12/2011 |
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