Hi, I’m Beverley Watkins with Global Impact Ministries and welcome to God Today. I love the word today because we’ve got to do stuff today that’s going to change our tomorrow. Often I get around people and they’re always telling me, “Oh, Beverley, you know, this is tough and that’s tough.” Do you know what I always say? “If you don’t like your life, change it.” And that kind of takes you a little bit aback because you think, “Oh, well this is my life. And this is my lot. And this is what I have to struggle through every day and kind of just get ahold of.”
The bottom line is that’s not true. Jesus died and shed His blood so that you could grab ahold of everything that you need to take yourself out of where you are today and come into His plan for you tomorrow. But it’s going to take some work and it’s going to take you deciding that “I’m not going to wallow in the pit of self-pity every single day, but I’m actually going to believe what He did for me. I’m going to grab hold of it. And I’m going to press on and do what He’s called me to do.”
One of my favorite Scriptures is Philippians 3:13. It says, “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 love that because so often in our walk with the Lord, we get so focused on where we are right now, the struggles that we have, the challenges that we have, or even those things that we’ve been in that we’ve been forgiven of, but the enemy keeps reminding us of them.
And you know what? There comes a time where you’ve got to say, “God called me for better things and greater things than where I am right now. So I am going to forget what’s behind me, what I’ve been forgiven of, what God has dealt with me for. I take the lesson out of it, but I’m not going to drag that baggage one day longer. I’m going to leave it right here. I’m going to leave those things behind and I’m going to press on. I’m going to lean towards You.”
See, we have to lean into the things of God. We’ve got to stretch for them. We’ve got to reach for those things because it’s in the reaching and it’s in the pressing towards Him, that He begins to make you into a different shape. He begins to craft you and form you into a new person – a person walking in victory, a person walking in everything that He has for you. But you have to make the decision that “I’m not going to let that stuff hold me back. I’m not going to be pulled in a backward direction. I’m not going to be pulled down, but I’m going to be pulled up and forward by Him because He is the one who wrote the book about me. He is the one who has a plan and a purpose for me. And today I’m going to believe Him.”
So right now, I want to pray for you. If you’re feeling a little dragged down or if you feel like the baggage is getting to you, just let it go today. We take it off right now in the name of Jesus. And Father I say, I believe that You have a plan and a future for me. I know that everything that I need to get into that place was given to me in Jesus. And I thank You that as I take hold of Your hand this morning, and I begin to reach for You, and I begin to press for You, You are pulling me into a new place. And You’re bringing me out of every pit of despair, every place of hopelessness, every place of struggle, every place of frustration, You’re pulling me out of it – that I might attain to everything that God has for me today. In Jesus’ name, amen.