{"id":7767,"date":"2020-02-16T20:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T03:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=7767"},"modified":"2020-02-16T17:25:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T00:25:25","slug":"job29_1-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/job29_1-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Worship the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Job 29:1-25\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

\n

Today\u2019s passage is Job 29:1-25.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Job 29:2-6 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me,
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness!
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me,
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.
\n<\/em>
\nOn verses 1-25:\u00a0\u00a0Here Job longs achingly for the years that preceded all the loss and pain he experienced.\u00a0\u00a0Those were the days when he felt God\u2019s illuminating light and intimate friendship (v2-4), when his children were still with him and life was sweet (v5-6), when he had great status in the eyes of people (v7-11), when he helped the weak and poor (v12-17), when he was filled with confidence and hope about his future (v18-20), when people valued his counsel (v21-24), and when he enjoyed great power but was gentle in his exercise of it (v25).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0If you want to guarantee yourself a miserable life, worship the past.<\/strong>\u00a0Worshiping the past is where you allow your experiences from the past to keep you from moving forward.\u00a0\u00a0We can do this in two ways.\u00a0\u00a0The first way we worship the past is where we have trouble letting go of past hurts, failures and disappointments.\u00a0The second way is where we are so fixated on yesterday\u2019s happiness or success that we do not leave any room for God to do anything new in our lives.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s when you say, \u201cLife was so much better or easier yesterday.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Job was worshiping the past in this second way.<\/p>\n

Job thought that his life would never be as good as it used to be, when in fact the opposite was true: God\u2019s best for Job was actually still ahead.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, I believe that is God\u2019s plan for all of us: God\u2019s best is always yet to come (see Proverbs 4:18).\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0like Job, when we worship the past, we allow our past to limit our future.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0We keep ourselves from seeing the good things God is doing today and tomorrow because we are stuck in yesterday.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are you worshiping the past?\u00a0\u00a0Ecclesiastes 7:10 it says,\u00a0\u201c<\/sup>Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is absolutely nothing wrong with reminiscing about good memories and past blessings. Doing so can warm the heart and encourage gratitude.\u00a0\u00a0There is also nothing wrong with studying the past.\u00a0\u00a0We need to learn from our past mistakes lest we repeat them.\u00a0\u00a0But don\u2019t worship the past.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t allow your past to limit your future.<\/p>\n

God sent Jesus Christ to die for your sins and to rise again so that through Him you would always be able to say, \u201cMy best days are not behind me.\u00a0\u00a0My best days are yet to come.\u201d Like Paul, to the extent that we may be tempted to worship the past, we need to instead forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead (Philippians 3:13).<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, You alone — and not my past — are worthy of my worship. Thank You for past blessings and thank You that I can learn from past mistakes, but by Your grace may I not worship the past.\u00a0\u00a0I proclaim by faith that You are doing new things in my life and that the best is yet to come.\u00a0\u00a0Holy Spirit fill me today, that I would forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Job 29:1-25.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Job 29:2-6 (NIV)\u00a0
\n2\u00a0\u00a0“How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me,\u00a0
\n3\u00a0\u00a0when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness!\u00a0
\n4\u00a0\u00a0Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,\u00a0
\n5\u00a0\u00a0when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me,\u00a0
\n6\u00a0\u00a0when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 1-25:\u00a0\u00a0Here Job longs achingly for the years that preceded all the loss and pain he experienced.\u00a0\u00a0Those were the days when he felt God\u2019s illuminating light and intimate friendship (v2-4), when his children were still with him and life was sweet (v5-6), when he had great status in the eyes of people (v7-11), when he helped the weak and poor (v12-17), when he was filled with confidence and hope about his future (v18-20), when people valued his counsel (v21-24), and when he enjoyed great power but was gentle in his exercise of it (v25).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7770,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions\/7770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}