By Marlene McBean
(Isaiah 43 vs 18-21) For us to embrace the new things God wants to do in our lives we have to:
CHANGE OUR FOCUS — QUIT LOOKING BEHIND START LOOKING HEAD
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. If we are continually looking behind us, we cannot see where we are going. If we are ever going to move on to new things in Christ we must learn that we cannot depend upon past victories to sustain us. To change our focus we must take time out for God every day, prayer and fasting and spend time in the word, evaluate what is distracting us from God and block them.
The children of Israel had many victories in their past: But now they are in captivity. All their previous victories were doing nothing to set them free. They needed a new work, a new miracle, a new victory. Like us, our past victories are doing nothing to set us free because we keep dwelling in the past.
We cannot live on yesterday’s faith.
Many of us have experienced great spiritual blessings throughout our walk with God and had seen the hand of God at work in and through our lives. Yet our faith in what God had done was doing nothing to deliver us from our present situation. Our old faith was not sufficient enough to deliver us from our present problems. We needed new faith, a new vision for what God can do. We need a new portion of the faith that will bring to pass all the victories from before.
CLARIFY YOUR FOCUS — DISCOVER WHAT GOD WANTS FOR YOU
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. What do we see when we view our life? Do we see possibilities or problems? Notice what God said: I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The children of Israel had a choice. They could view their past and the problems of their present, or they could focus upon what God wanted to do in their lives.
We Must First See ourselves as God Sees us
(Galatian 3vs 26-29) – God sees us as children of God and not by race'(2 Corinthians 5 vs 17) God sees us as new creation.’ (Psalm 139 vs 14) fearfully and wonderfully made. (1 John 5 vs 4) as an overcomer.(Romans 8 vs 37) More than a conquer. In order to discover what God wants for us.
We Must See our Possibilities as God Sees Them
I am making a way in the desert. God is able to transform the desert areas of our life into fields of blessing and abundance. God can take a dried up useless life and trans-form it into a life of purpose and grace. Sometimes we feel like our past has made our life a wasteland, but in God, our life can become a stream of life.
I encourage us to stop going back on the things that God has delivered us from. Stop crying and pursue God with all we have. God is setting up new things for us. While we’re having a pity party God is putting things in order. So I say, GET UP and go after our new thing. Change our attitude and run after the things of God and get rid of our regrets.