No More Looking Back

Happy New Year to all who read this article. We all know that New Year's Day that all of us look forward to thing being better than the year before, whether to previous year was a good year or not. We always look forward to the New Year with hope.

When I accepted Jesus into my life as Lord and Savior in December of 1975, I was very hopeful about the upcoming year of 1976. The year of 1975 was a dismal year for me. It started with the breaking up of a relationship with a girl, who at that time was the girl of my dreams. At approaching 68 years of age come March, looking back at how I let the broken relationship effect me seems rather childish, but then again, I was only 19 going on 20 and hadn't experienced the things I've lived through since that time. So, at age 19 when the relationship ended, I was devastated. I went into a deep depression that I was unable to escape.

When Jesus came into my life, I immediately had experiences with Jesus that I cannot get into right now. Needless to say, however, that those experiences proved to me how real Jesus is, and gave me much hope for the year that was about to come up.

Shortly after Christmas, I bought an album by the British rock band, The Kinks. The were one of the original British Invasion bands in 1963/1964 that came along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The album I bought was called, “School Boys In Disgrace.” It was nostalgic, had humor and as a whole told a story. There was one song in particular that stood out to me. It was entitled, “No More Looking Back.” It was about a guy, who experienced a broken relationship with his girl. Every where he went, and everything he saw reminded him of his girlfriend. Part of the song went like this:

“And just when I think your outa my head, I hear a record you played or see a book that you read. You're in every car, you're in every cafe, I see you everyday, but you're not really there, because you belong to yesterday.”

But then he sings,

“No more looking back, no more living in the past, yesterday's gone, that's a fact, now there's no more looking back. Gonna be hard. Yeah, look straight ahead that's the only way it's gotta be. Yesterday's gone that's a fact, now there's no more looking back.”

At the end of the song, he repeats the previous stanza in a very declarative way. I adopted that song as my personal declaration of freedom. No more looking back.

As I have gone on in my relationship with Jesus, I have found that God is a God of the new. In Isaiah 43:18-19, God speaks through the prophet Isaiah saying, “Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” (King James Version).

God makes a similar proclamation in Isaiah 42:8-10:

“I am the Lord: that is My name: and My glory will I not give another, neither My praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I will tell you of them. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth...”

The Scriptures are replete with examples of God always bringing about the new.

Such examples are Abraham, Moses and the apostle Paul just to name a few. With Abraham, was originally from the Ur of Chaldees which is about where present day Iraq is. The Chaldeans, who later became the Babylonian Empire were a very pagan people. They were steeped into idolatry and also practiced the occult. God called Abraham, who undoubtedly was pagan himself, responded to God's call. God told him to leave his family, leave his country and that God was going to make Abraham a father of many nations. Abraham and his wife Sarah were childless due to Sarah being barren.

God's new to Abraham was in that Abraham had to leave the familiar and embrace the new that God had for him, which resulted in Abraham and Sarah miraculously having a son, over time, Abraham becoming the father of many nations. The apostle Paul in Galatians chapter three states that anyone who has Christ is the seed of Abraham. There are Christians all over the world. Indeed, Abraham has become the father of many nations.

Moses, at the time of the burning bush experience in which God called Moses, was tending his father-in-law's sheep for forty years. Can you imagine tending sheep for forty years. God called Moses to confront Pharaoh, the king of Egypt to let God's people go so that they could worship Him and have relationship with Him. God called Moses to lead His people to the Promised Land. Moses was originally fearful about this and offered up excuses to God. However, eventually Moses yielded his heart to God to do the things God called him to do.

God's new for Moses was to bring him from tending sheep for forty years to being a prophet and leader of the children of Israel, confronting the most powerful individual of that time, the king of Egypt, and as mentioned before, leading the children of Israel to the Promised land.

In the New Testament book of Acts, the apostle Paul, was a overzealous religious leader named Saul. He persecuted severely the Christian Church. He approved the stoning of the first Christian martyr, named Stephen. He was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial and likely execution, when he encountered Jesus. The Lord Jesus transformed Saul, into Paul who arguably became the most influential writer of the New Testament, who through all kinds of peril and persecution, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, starting churches throughout the Roman Empire along the way.

The thing about God bringing about the new is that often times in the midst of good things happening, and powerful manifestations of God moving through His people such as we see in the book of Acts, there are also challenges. Sometimes those challenges can be severe. Even outside of a relationship with Jesus, new things often bring challenges. However, by yielding to the Holy Spirit we can receive the grace we need to persevere and obtain the new that God desires to bring about in and through our lives.

In closing, in the late 1980's, early 1990's there was a contemporary Christian singer named Ray Boltz. He was most popular for a song entitled, “Thank You.” The song was about a man who had served the Lord with his life, who was now in heaven. People who he had helped who were also in heaven, came up to him to say “thank you” because of all he had done for those people.

“Thank you, for giving to the Lord, I am life that was changed.”

That was the primary line the people said (sang) to the man who helped them. Ray Boltz also had another song that meant a lot to me. It was entitled, “Seasons Change.” The song told the stories of a few individuals that went through hard times. However, each of them held on to the promise that, as the words of the song said, “Seasons change, better times will come again. Seasons change, you will find the blessing is worth the pain.” In my relationship with Jesus, I have found over and over again that the line of that song is so true. And because of that, regardless of the challenges of the new, I can embrace the new and declare, no more looking back. May God grant you His grace for the new of 2023.

Love and God bless, Pastor Paul.