This year, as with many years in the past Liela and I, along with our children, new additions in our sons Fiancée’s, and a host of wonderful friends ushered in the new year,2019 worshipping Jesus at the annual Onething conference in Kansas City.
Or perhaps better stated we said goodbye to 2018. We said goodbye to an era, as this is the last Onething conference for the foreseeable future. We said that goodbye with 20 thousand people. It has been a fruitful season, seeing breakthroughs and salvations for decades. I was so full of joy last night as the clarion call of the gospel went forth and I saw hand after hand go up to receive the gift of Salvation one last time here at this conference.
“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way.”
Philippians 3:13-15
To me this resonates much with my heart. Liela and I are on our own journey of ends and beginnings in our own life. Change is hard, change is necessary, change is often inevitable. It will come. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 ESV
So today January 1st 2019 I want to declare loudly to you: your past does not define you. Your past season, whether a fruitful season or one you’d just as soon forget that has been full of regrets, does not ultimately determine your future. Your 2019 is ready to be embraced, God already wrote this next season in His book and He is so for you (Psalm 139). Right now He is in your corner rooting for you, His Hephzibah, for He delights in you (Isaiah 62:4).
So join with me in straining forward into 2019:
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force (a part of one’s body or oneself) to make a strenuous or unusually great effort
That we would press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
2019 is full of opportunities, press on, dont give up, dont loose heart. Its going to be so good.