Read Philippians 1-4
Everyone has a past. Whether big or small, we have all sinned in one way or another. I remember when I was a young child, Halloween would roll around and my brother and I would sit and trade our candy. I would somehow manage to end up with the majority of the candy. “I’ll take 3 one-colored pieces and you can have this pretty three-colored piece”, I would bargain. Or the times that I would trade him a nickel in exchange for a dime because he was getting the “bigger” one. Silly examples that I have never lived that down to this day, yet I continue to fall short of the perfect person that God wants me to be, as we all do.
I love the encouragement of Paul, where he states (Philippians 3:13-14), “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal…” I love that God has forgiven our crazy pasts and continues to forgive us in spite of ourselves. And I love that our focus doesn’t have to be on how short we have fallen, but on Heaven and what is to come! How wonderful that God has given us His grace to be able to do this!
I encourage you to avoid getting bogged down in whatever you past may consist of and focus on what is to come! If we continue to see the “big picture,” it makes our focus so much more clear! And on a fun note, the first 5 people to email smallgroups@adventurechurch.org will receive a $5 gift card to Starbucks!
- Meredith Hedwall serves in Adventure in Marriage and MOPS at Adventure Church
