Encouragement

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Today is day 2 of our Recipe for Success Challenge. We must remember an important point as we move forward in 2015, we shouldn't look back on 2014. Taking inventory is a way of balancing out the year. Four things are often determined during the inventory process:
1) What remains (the fruit of our labor)
2) The value of what remains
3) What will be scrapped
4) What will be carried forward

Once this assessment is completed, recorded, and executed… we should move forward without looking back.

Closing the door on the past can be a difficult task depending on how spiritually, emotionally, or physically attached we are to yesterday. The good news is that we serve a loving God that understands our every challenge. Because of His understanding, our success recipe takes into account our difficulty with letting go. As shown above, the inventory process allows us to bring forward those things that are of value to our future success. We are only encouraged to scrap that which hinders our progress.

Below are three examples where explicit direction is given to move forward without looking back.

Example 1
Gen 19:1-30 tells the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Key verses are shown below:
v 12 And the men said unto Lot, Has though here any besides?
son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and
whatsoever thou has in the city, bring them out of this
place:
v 13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is
waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord has
sent us to destroy it
v 17 And it came to pass, when thy had brought them forth
abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind
thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the
mountain, lest thou be consumed
v 26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a
pillar of salt

Example 2
Luke 9:57-62 provides an example of the cost of discipleship. Key verses are shown below:
v 59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my father.
v 61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let
me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my
house.
v 62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of
God.

Example 3
2 Peter 2: 10-22 provides a description of false teachers, who turn back to unrighteousness. Key verses are shown below:
v 20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world
through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, they are again entangled therein, and
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the
beginning.
v 21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way
of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn
from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
v 22 But it is happened unto them according to the true
proverb, THE DOG IS TURNED TO HIS OWN VOMIT AGAIN; and the
sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire

Our three examples have the following common themes:
A) There is a premonition of what will happen
B) Successful instruction is given
C) And warning is given based on the condition of looking
back, focusing on, or revisiting the place or condition
from where they were delivered.

In Genesis Lot was advised to take that which was worthy, flee to safety, and not even set eyes on the spot of his deliverance.
In Luke men were told the conditions of the calling, then instructed to follow. Both opted to follow their own plan FIRST, then follow divine instruction.
In 2 Peter teachers were given instruction on how to overcome the world…but in their knowledge, they preferred the rewards of worldliness and remained unrighteous.

Rewards were
1. Turning to a pillar of salt – or being rendered completely
ineffective
2. Deemed unfit – or being left behind
3. A worse fate than those that disobeyed in ignorance –
essentially the rewarded curse from disobedience

This is heavy stuff. Not to say that any will turn into a pillar of salt… but now that we have instructions concerning how to have a successful year our goal is to escape the rewards of looking back ie..
A) We want our efforts to be rendered effective
B) Keeping it forward helps prohibit being left behind in a
continuous twenty-fourteen do loop
C) We want to reap blessed the reward of obedience

Kind of long today. Needed to bring it home. Think it over, square your shoulders, one foot in front of the other, move forward in faith… following the recipe to your certain victories in 2015.

NO LOOK BACKS!!

And be blessed!

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