God's Desire For You To Keep MOVING FORWARD!

Have you had those moments in your life where it felt like everything was going the wrong way?
You were serving God and being faithful, yet it felt like every step forward in your walk with Christ resulted in what seemed like 10 steps backwards.

Finally you got to the point that you thought why am I doing all of this if I am getting nowhere stronger in my faith.

Maybe you were dealing with a financial crisis, marriage troubles, depression or just the stresses of life seem to be piling up all at once.

Yet something inside you kept reminding you to hold on, don’t give up and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

Many times we are going through  a season of change and God is wanting to take us to a closer relationship with Him and that requires us to go through some tough times. Sometimes those around us may not understand or even feel resentment at where God is taking you.

In your mind you may even think that it would be easier to “go back to the way things were” so that there isn’t  as much stress or worry. Maybe you feel like giving up on a calling from God, what feels like a dead end job or even hopeless marriage. But, that is not what God has for you.
In Proverbs 16:9 it says “The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”

In Joshua 6:6-7, he tells  them  “Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord.” Then he said to the people, “Go forward, and march around the city, and let the armed men go on before the ark of the Lord.”

In Genesis chapter 19, we see what happened to someone that did look about at what they were leaving behind. In verse 17 one of the angels tells Lot “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away.” 
But then in verse 26 we see that as fire and brimstone came upon the city that Lot’s wife looked back and was instantly turned to a pillar of salt. Her heart was still toward the things of her past that were being destroyed and it was difficult to let them go.

When it seems like old habits or addictions want to rise up and you feel tempted to give into those urges, because it seems like it will take the pain or stress away, even if for just a few moments.

In Luke 9 verses 61-62 Jesus is talking with several of His followers when one asks him a question, "And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house. But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Dr. Cole says in his book Never Quit that “ so often in times of crisis, we think of escaping from something, some undesirable place or condition. We think in terms of avoiding crisis, problems, difficulties, punishment, correction and the hard issues of life because we are basically negative by nature.  When we deal with change in a godly way, we will multiply, or increase rather than decrease.”

In Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

And then in 2 Timothy 4:7 Paul reminds Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

That is what I want to remind you that even in those difficult times, when it seems like all hope is lost and there is no way out, God wants you to keep looking forward to him.

 “Moving Forward” by Israel Houghton.