Forget the Old to Find the New

Have you ever longed to forget what has happened, and dwell on the promise of something greater? Have you ever wished your mind would think only of good things, and believe in what God promises? Have you ever yearned for a greater faith to trust in God’s purpose? Have you ever longed for a peace that is lasting?



“Yes!” our hearts hope, and “impossible” our minds declare. And here lies the battle. We want to believe. We yearn to believe. We hope to believe. We cry out to believe. Even though we are meant to be new in Christ, even though we know that all things in our lives are meant to be new, and even though we believe the old should be over, we struggle to move forward in faith. We cannot perceive what this new life, free from the bondage of old chains, really means.



“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” (Isaiah 43:18). This Scripture tells us not to wrap our minds around what has happened, and not to continually think about the past that has defined us. It instructs us to make a decision to forget the past. Forget is a strong word, and it means “being unable to call to mind, unable to summon up, or unable to picture.” Now that sounds incredible! Not to remember or even have a picture in my mind of past fears or failures. Forget means that the past is gone. So we shouldn’t continually think about it or dwell on it. He will keep me, and He will keep you in perfect peace when our minds dwell on Him (Isaiah 26:3).



“See,” the Lord states, “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it” (Isaiah 43:19)? When my mind does not dwell on what has been, hope is much easier. See is another strong word, and it means “to understand, realize, or perceive.” It doesn’t mean to just look. Look has no depth, and is concerned with appearance only. See takes look somewhere it has never gone before. See expectantly believes that God is doing a new thing. Faith is the “new” thing. Faith is not dormant. It is alive. It springs up. Can I not perceive it? Can you not perceive it?



We must forget the former things, bar them from our minds, and be renewed in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:23). We choose to remain confident because we know God does a new thing. “Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36). We shall rest assured, because we know He is faithful. We will persevere until the new is perceived. In all things we will seek His will, and He will reward our diligence. We will give Him the past, the fear, the failures, all that has gone wrong, and His peace that passes human understanding, will guard our thoughts (Philippians 4:6-7). His promise of peace is real. His promise of faith is real. We choose to forget the former things, and believe in the promise He has for us (Isaiah 43:18-19). We choose to let go of the former things which have defined us, and believe that His promises of faith, of peace, of victory, of joy, of healing, of hope, of purpose, of freedom, of every good and perfect gift, are real.


“I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,” He promises. “The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise” (Isaiah 43:20-21). Even though I may walk through the wasteland, it will not destroy me. It will not define me, BECAUSE He gives me everything I need to survive and flourish. I forget the old to find the new

No Matter What I Have Him

No matter what I face, I am never alone.
No matter what my weakness, I have strength.
No matter what I feel, I have a spirit that rests.
No matter what my struggle, I have peace.
No matter what my defeat, I have victory.
No matter what my sadness, I have joy.
No matter what my lot, I have faith.
No matter what, it doesn't matter.
I have Him.

His Word My Strength

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:10-11).


I remember the moment I found these verses in Isaiah, and realized that the Bible was directly from the heart of God. The words on the pages suddenly became full of promise for me. They were like a hidden treasure for me to discover, and I was hungry for the adventure. I wanted them to accomplish His best in my life. As the pain, loss, and troubles of life hit me fully in the face, God reassured me with the promises I had discovered in His Word. Through many years He has continually given me peace through His Word.


"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).


Whatever happens I can trust God to handle my pain. I can trust Him to carry all the worries and problems. But I must release all of it to Him, and allow His peace to work in my heart and mind. I have to learn to surrender everything to Him, and that process means letting go and allowing His strength to become mine. I must face my fears and problems head-on with His strength and believe He will carry me through each ordeal. I must exercise faith trusting that no matter what the outcome, He will provide for my every need.


"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame" (Isaiah 50:7).


Unswervingly! With my face set like a flint! This is way I will believe. He will provide the strength to overcome my fears, and face my problems head-on. I decide to believe this, and allow Him to be my strength. It sounds good to read these Scriptures over and over, but I MUST internalize them until they become real in me.... until my every thought is taken captive by them. And only then I will realize His greatest healing peace.


"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised" (Hebrews 10:35-36). "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it" (I Thessalonians 5:24).


I must never give up! I must believe that He is faithful to take care of whatever I have released to Him. I must believe that when I surrender by body, soul, spirit, mind, and heart to Him, I will receive what He has promised me. He will give me victory over fear, problems, struggles, and I will know peace that the world will never give. It will be His peace that passes all my human understanding. And I will know Him through His Word alive in my spirit, and His Spirit alive in me. He will truly be my strength, my victory, my Savior, my peace, my joy, and my love. He will be my All-in-All.

Let's Be Real

What is your life saying? What is my life saying? Is it about me or about others? I don't want to be a part of the ME generation. I want my heart to be broken for others. I want my life to make a difference. 

Years ago I saw a bumper sticker that read, "Is your life a message or a mess?" It asked me if I had an anchored purpose or if I was like flotsam- floating around with no anchor. I would like to challenge each one of us to examine our lives. To examine our moments. Our thoughts. Our actions. To really see if Jesus is our reason for existence. If He is our first love, we need to live it. James was explicit when he penned that "faith without works in dead". Likewise, he let us know that works without faith has little meaning. If we love Jesus, we should not be a ME generation. We should be living faith in action for others. We should be on the front lines for Jesus.

So where are you now? Where am I? Jesus knows where we are. Are we ready to be truthful with Him? Are we really ready to examine our hearts? Are we ready to be a message for Him instead of a mess with no purpose? Let's be real with Him so we can be real with others.

Reasonable Expectations

Many times we start a new year with a list of goals we want to achieve without considering that growth just doesn't happen. We need to consider the value of having reasonable expectations.

Are your expectations attainable? Or are they so high you get easily discouraged? Sometimes a goal is so high you need to take the steps to get there one by one. Just thinking of a high goal can be terribly discouraging, and makes it seem impossible. You might give up. But if you take a little step at a time, and just concentrate on that step, the next step becomes easier. Then the next, and the next. Suddenly you may discover you have met your high goal, and you can look back and see how God has strengthened you the whole way. Always consider that a high goal may only be found through the accomplishment of smaller reasonable goals.

Others are watching you. On the way to your goal you might slide back a step or two. “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” Paul writes, “and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (II Corinthians 3:17). Be humble enough to admit when you’re wrong or fail or don’t have an answer. Trying to be “perfect” only creates disappointment when you make mistakes...not only for you, but maybe for those who are learning from your journey. Let your mask down. A willingness to be vulnerable invites vulnerability in others. It inspires honesty, but, greater still, opens each person’s heart to the healing presence of the Holy Spirit. Be honest when you make a mistake. Ask for forgiveness and forgive yourself. Then try again.

Never hold on to your failure. Examine it. Realize the lesson; apply the lesson and then give it to God. Don’t dig it back up. It’s gone. Forgiveness for your own mistakes and for those of others is consciously rendered. We decide to move on, and trust the Lord for the strength with which to accomplish it.

All things are possible with God!

I Will Conquer

I will not fail if I trust in Him. I will not fail if I have His conquering heart and steadfast mind. My attitude must be that of a conqueror. I will stand, and having done everything, I will stand. I will conquer my foes, my fears, and my obstacles, because He is not just with me. He is in me, and He gives me the strength to rise to greater victories. I become more than a conqueror. I walk in newness of life and freedom from the past, from fears and circumstance. I walk above that which would destroy me. And in Him there is no failure. There is only victory.

Joshua 1:7
Romans 8:37-39

A New Year and A New Success

It is a new year, and I want to be successful in living the life He has called me to live. But there are things that are necessary for me—things that I need to strengthen in my life and things I need to cast out. I must become disciplined. “Strip down, start running—and never quit!” the writer to Hebrews declares, “ No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:2-3, The Message).

I want to make a difference in the lives of other people. I want others to discover the love of Christ that will change their lives. But I must allow Him to be successful in my life before I can be successful in helping others. The secret of any success I find is His success in me. It is how He succeeds in me, and what He is able to accomplish in and through me. I only discover success through surrender of my will to His will for my life. I only discover His power when I realize that my power is not really able to achieve anything.

Just think about it! Power to conquer my failures! Power to conquer my demons! Power to rise above my own doubts and fears! In His power there is no failure. There is power to silence the demons. There is the ability to rise above my doubts and fears. But I must surrender and “strip down, start running, and never quit.” I must live very close to Him until He lives daily in me. I must persevere and live in His will until I receive His promise of success (Hebrews 10:35-36). That success will then be perfect, because it will be His success.

Success may come in souls that are saved, diseases that are healed, and lives that are changed. But it also comes in ways the world does not consider success. Success is at its greatest in sacrifice. Because it is in the moment of sacrifice that success is found. It is at the moment of death to my own desires that the victory of His sacrifice on the cross becomes alive in me. Then His success becomes mine.

The world does not see success in surrender. The world judges according to its own desires, but God judges with a heart that gave His son for me. The Lord understands the power in surrender. Success is a daily labor of setting my own desires aside, and allowing Him to work in my life. He must plant himself in my life, and prune me until I bear fruit. When I surrender to His daily lessons, I will bear the fruit of success.

So what is success to me? It is His purpose instead of my own—His life instead of mine. The secret to my success is surrender of my own plans, my own desires, my own purpose, my own ideas and needs. Surrendering to Him is a promise of success which is better than any I might imagine. Success is Christ alive in me instead of me! I will keep my eyes of Jesus, and learn how He finished His own race. I will persevere in spite of all odds. When I find myself wavering, I will remember how Jesus faced obstacles that I never shall have to face. I will remember how He laid down His life, so I might be set free from sin and failure. I will remember how He held on for His ultimate reward. Can’t you hear Bruce Copeland say, “If that don’t your float your boat, what will?”

Am I ready to find this success? Are you? This new year will tell.

I BELIEVE

Do I believe He is the way, the truth, and the life? If I believe He is the way, then I will always have a sure path to follow. If I believe He is the truth, then I will always know what is right and what is wrong. If I believe He is the life, then I will faithfully follow that sure path; I will faithfully apply His truth, and then I will live the life in which I believe.

BELIEVE HIM

“Forget the former things…do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19.

Why is it so hard to get rid of negative feelings? Why do we have trouble trusting God? If we are new creatures in Christ, why don’t we sometimes feel new? Why do things from the past still control our feelings? Why are things from the past still affecting our lives? Why do we allow them to define who we are? Why can’t we just grasp His hand and believe without a struggle?

Because we have accepted Him as Savior, we are new. The old is done. Negative thoughts of what we have been are no longer true. I am not a failure. You are not a failure. We have what it takes. We have Jesus Christ, and He is the way, the truth, and the life which brings new promise to our lives.

To truly forget the former things, and not dwell on the past, we can't just believe IN Him, we must BELIEVE HIM. To be free from worries that control my life and your life, we must BELIEVE HIM. We must believe that He can do what He says. We must believe that we can forget the former things, and they will not control our lives. I am free in Him. You are free in Him, but we must BELIEVE HIM, not just believe in Him.

When we BELIEVE HIM, newness springs up, the old is no more, and we can perceive His truth instead of the lies of our past or circumstance. It is a promise that no matter what we face He is our strength, and brings life-giving streams of hope and promise to the barren deserts in our lives.

I choose to forget the former things, and BELIEVE HIM.

Bloomingly Grounded

Consider a flower seed. It sends a shoot down into the earth in order to be securely grounded. At the same time another a shoot grows upward to become a thing of beauty that will bring joy to the world. 

Without a strong root the beautiful plant that the world sees would  fade away. The higher the growth of the plant, the deeper the root must go to keep it grounded and strong. 

So are our lives in Christ. Without a deep, abiding, and grounded faith the work we do withers and fades. Our attempt at ministry dies on the vine because we have no deep root in Him. Just because a ministry appears gloriously beautiful does not mean it is lasting. Let your roots grow deep in Him, and your life will bloom with lasting beauty.