Christian Living

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“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.”
It’s a new year and with it came many resolutions. Some of us have promised to eat better, exercise, stop whatever it is that we’re doing, etc. Every year there are those who make the same promises to themselves and every year they fail. I often wonder if we have considered the reason for the failure? “ I wasn’t strong enough, “ may be the revelation that some of us have finally gotten but the truth is that you never were. We constantly and pointlessly fight battles and sin. Stop it! You will never win. However, Christ has. Our energy should be spent on filling ourselves with the things of the Lord.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

If you wasted 28 years of your life before you accepted Christ, then you have 28 years of undoing to tend to. The old way of thinking and handling issues cannot exist in a life led by Christ. The things that hinder us from attaining God’s best must be dealt with but only through Jesus. This is not dwelling on events, habits and sins of the past but repenting and then filling one’s self with the liberating Word of God. It is time to become serious about your life. You cannot continue to be tossed “ to and fro” or in and out of happiness for the rest of your life. Right now you need to receive a more permanent gift, you need joy. Joy is constant. It doesn’t care what your condition is or what the situation appears to be. It is based on the knowledge of God and His promises toward you. It is a partner of faith.
Everyone should have a sense of desperation concerning his or her life. When we are finally and truly tired of living as a status quo, business as usual Christian, then we will pursue the Lord with all diligence. Pressing towards the mark indicates force. When you press you apply pressure, you earnestly seek, you embrace closely, you constantly and consistently try hard!
Pressing towards a mark is not attending services on Sunday and living off mercy the rest of the week. It is not simply having a Bible on the coffee table for show. It is not praying scripted prayers learned in childhood and expecting God to move. Pressing means there will be a sacrifice of strength and time. It means opposing your own fleshly desire to sleep when prayer is mandatory. It means separation from the things and people that detain you from having a better life through Christ. Pressing means action.
Forget what you will loose and consider what will be gained. Everything the Lord asks us to leave of let go of is always for out best. Press, your abundant life depends on it.

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