Paul writes about his spiritual journey in Philippians 3:12-14 and states:  “not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Part of making forward progress in our spiritual journey involves “forgetting what is behind us.”  There are two parts to “forgetting.”

The first is to forget the bad.

Maybe you’ve had a bad experience or maybe you did something long ago that you regret.  Maybe the memories keep coming back to haunt you, keeping you from living a full life today.  We must forget the past.  It’s over, it’s done, it’s gone.  It cannot hurt you anymore.  There’s nothing you can do to change it.  Sometimes we just have to move on.

On New Year’s Day, 1929, Georgia Tech was playing California.  Late in the second quarter, Roy Riegals recovered a fumble for Cal, and in his excitement became confused and began running in the wrong direction.  After racing 65 yards he was finally tackled by his own player at the Cal 2-yard line.  Cal attempted to punt from deep in their own end zone, but the kick was blocked and Tech scored a safety.  In the locker room at halftime, Roy sat in the corner with his face buried in his hands, crying.  The room was silent.  The coach didn’t make his usual halftime speech, but shortly before the team was to take the field for the second half, he said, “The starting team is going back onto the field to begin the second half.”  The whole team left the locker room except for Riegals, who remained in the corner with his face in his hands.  “I can’t do it, Coach,” he said.  “I can’t play.  I’ve ruined the team.”  The coach said, “Get up Riegals.  The game is only half over.  You belong on the field!”  Riegals was the most motivated and inspired player on the team for the rest of the game.  In the end, Cal lost the game by one point, but Riegels did play great in the second half – including blocking a punt.

The top quarterbacks usually say that when they throw an interception, they have to forget about it and get motivated to go out and score touchdowns.

If we ask, God is willing to forgive us for past mistakes.  He wants us to forgive one another and ourselves.  We have to move on and look toward success in the future.

The second part of forgetting is to forget the good.  

That may sound like bad advice, but think about it.  Think about your accomplishments in life.  Maybe there’s one period you look back on and think – wow, those were the glory days, the good old days.  Life was good.  I was on top of things.  Well…unfortunately we can’t stay there.  We have to even move on from accomplishments and strive for more.  We don’t ever reach a point where we can just quit and say we’re not going to do anything else.  There may be rest periods, but you can’t always focus on one accomplishment.  Keep moving forward.

The past is always part of us in some way, of course, shaping who we have become; but we can’t live in the past and let it hold us back or rest on our laurels if we truly want to press on toward the goal.

Picture if you will, me sitting around the family dinner table on any given Sunday, with my mom, dad, my siblings and any number of missionaries or minister friends that would grace our family table as our guest.   I am maybe 10 years old and I am sitting mesmerized by the stories they share, for hours on end.  This is what a typical Sunday might look like as I was growing up in a Pastor’s home.  I can say without a doubt that those conversations have helped to mold my concept of ministry.   While the other kids disappeared outdoors for a softball game, I can recall just listening to story after story of miracles and God’s Faithfulness.  That kind of talking impacted my life so, that even today, I can recall stories with vivid recollection.    I’m grateful for the “Mary moments” that I had over the years, sitting at the feet of Heroes of the Faith.  They left their mark on me.

“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life…The lips of the righteous nourish many” (Proverbs 10:11 and 21).

Lord Jesus, thank you for those individuals who have spoken into my life.  May I be one that speaks into the lives of others.   In Your holy name I pray. Amen.

It started out as another Sunday.  We had done it!  We made it through Easter, the biggest Sunday of the year!  Now we would go back to our “normal” exciting Sundays, or so I thought.  It was the week after Easter and half way through 1^st service I noticed the number of kids was larger than usual and still growing.  Well, it’s “Golden Ticket Sunday” I thought; we will have a few more than normal, especially with such a large Easter crowd. (632 kids birth to 5^th grade)

We continued through service and did the drawing for out “Golden Ticket Prize” and expected 2^nd service to be usual crowd, or maybe down a little since 1^st service was up.  That’s when it really started!  During the first song we were already pulling out extra chairs so everyone could have a place to sit.  But, kids kept coming in!  Leaders were getting excited and kept pulling out more chairs.  Then there was the “that’s all we have left”.  We had used every chair we had!

This was supposed to be an easier service!  We had already geared up for Easter and celebrated what God had done.   We were supposed to be getting back to the “normal” Sunday routine, if there is such a thing at LFA.  Apparently God did not get the memo.

By the end of the last service we had 485 kids, birth to 5^th grade.  In 2011 we had 490 on Easter Sunday! We were only 5 kids under the highest attended Sunday last year!  What?!  Check that again, last year on Easter we had 219 kids in the Elementary.  This year the week after Easter we had 241!  We had more kids the week after Easter this year than we had on, not just the largest Sunday last year, but on Easter!  The largest attended church day of the year!

So where do we go from here?  To God!  He is faithful and showing up in awesome ways at LFA Kids:  from leaders showing love to newborns, all the way up a 5^th grade Sunday School class where God is answering prayers, healing people, and kids can’t wait to participate!  Only by God do those things happen.  Come check out LFA Kids and be part of what God is doing!

In working through the Freedom Ministry classes, there have been many challenging moments for myself. One of my favorites is when Bob Hamp said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a convection oven.” He was trying to make the point that even though different foods can be exposed to the same heat, they will cook at different speeds. The same is true with God. Many people are exposed to the same God, but every individual will respond or grow at different rates. What strikes me is that so often as Christians we are quick to become critical of fellow believers when they do not experience God in the same manner we do. Everyone must remember that, just as we have different relationshipswith the people in our life, God has different ways to have a relationship with others and us.  God wants a personal connection with us, and that is going to differ with each of us. Instead ofbeing critical, we should rejoice with one another in the fact our God cares for us so deeply that He is willing to personally tailor His love for each one of His children.

For the past 2 years I’ve had this fear of failing in ministry. Which I don’t understand, I’m part of a wonderful church staff with a senior pastor that operates in grace and love and I have a great support system. I guess the only thing that makes sense is I battle with being a perfectionist.
I know there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do a great job, but perfectionism is a tool that the enemy will use to invoke fear, and when you are a christian and have fear that completely contradicts what the Bible says.

2 Timothy 1:7
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

I learn that fear is a recipe for destruction in ministry. I was listening to a message by Pastor Jimmy Evans and he said, ” Fear is your greatest threat in your ministry, and will be the greatest regret you’ll have in ministry.” He later expounded on some of the signs of fear and the one that stood out to was “people pleasing”  I can’t tell you the last time I took a risk. I’ve been so apprehensive about doing something wrong or doing something someone doesn’t like that it’s at the point of me doing everything on my own instead of with God.

Today is a new day and God has given me a word. I know I am NOTHING without Him and can do NOTHING without HIM.

Fear causes fear of risk. It causes “people pleasing” and wrong decisions. I’ve made the proclamation today that I will no longer live in FEAR.