Leave Behind the False Pride of Life

There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, Yet is not washed from his filthiness.  
Proberbs 30:12 

This week we are talking about good ways to start the new year, in particular what not to bring into the new year.  These are things that might keep you from reaching your full potential or keep you from fulfilling the plan God has for your life. 

Leave Behind the Bad Decisions of Life

Leave Behind the Bad Circumstances of Life

Leave Behind the False Pride of Life

If you don't have anything in your past that is bad, or if there isn't anything that you need to work through, then praise God, give thanks, and look out!  Sometimes dealing with a good past is the most difficult task of all.  People who can't think of any bad in their pasts are people who quickly lose sight of their need for God.

It is easy to reach a comfort level where we convince ourselves that we already know what we need to know.  Sermons become a form of entertainment or conversation starters, rather than a discussion about applying the words of scripture to our daily lives.

It is easy to come to church because we enjoy it instead of coming because we need to be here.  Such is life in the comfort zone -- scripture is intended for somebody else because we have heard it all before.  A good past is hard to overcome.

Spiritual complacency occurs when we think we have arrived at the goal.
God is not so concerned with where you have been or what you have done as He is where you ARE and what you are DOING. He is a God of the PRESENT.  Overestimation of ourselves leads to complacency. It is hard to move forward when you feel like you have already arrived.

Don't presume that your life is over if you have something bad in your past. Don't presume, either, that a good past is permission to relax.  The call to repent, to turn toward God, is for all of us to hear, and for us to hear over and over again.  Every day requires a renewed commitment to God, an increased awareness of God, and a greater participation in the ways of God.

Others will contribute to our growth and understanding, and we will learn some things from our pasts, but responsibility falls on us to respond to the presence of the living God every day in a way that deepens our faith.

A person will accomplish little who allows his mind to be distracted by a multiplicity of objects.  A Christian who does not have a single great aim and purpose of soul will accomplish nothing. That purpose should be to secure the prize, and to renounce everything that would be in the way to its attainment.

Let us then live that we may be able to say that there is one great object which we always have in view, and that we mean to avoid everything which would interfere with that!

Scripture to Claim:

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;  however, let us keep living by that same  standard to which we have attained.  Philippians 3:13-16