Hey so it’s been a little while since my last post.

I heard on the radio the other day a quote made by a young athlete: “You can’t dwell on the past, or it will become your future.”
This has really given me the opportunity to stop and think about things from a healthier perspective. Typically, we from our relationships and lifestyles based on who we used to be, and what we may have accomplished in the past. While this by itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can tend to hinder the strengthening of a relationship with Christ because it’s something we’re placing between ourselves and Him.

For example: In Matthew 8:18-22, we see an example of what Christ expects from us. And the answer is pretty simple: Christ wants our everything in the present. We can’t offer to him our future or our past, just the present.

A man comes to Christ and says, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.” Christ stops the man and tries to explain that following Him isn’t a path that’s taken lightly. It’s not a journey endowed with luxurious hotels and fancy meals and celebrity status. It’s quite the opposite many times, as we see from the Gospels. Then another man says to Christ, “First, let me go bury my father.”

Christ’s reply seems a bit uncaring at first, but Christ is not dismissing the fact that a man’s father has died. Christ was pointing out the fact that there will always be something “we need to take care of first” before we get up and follow Christ.

My question is this: What is in your life that’s so much more important than following Christ that you put HIM off to take care of?

Life doesn’t really get any easier, our schedules never really get any more open, and our situations don’t really get any less complicated. One tremendous truth, however, to remember in these instances is that Christ has accepted us wherever, whatever, and whoever we might be.

And so here we are – wherever that might be – procrastinating our participation in His kingdom, and for what? It has been evidenced, wouldn’t you agree? that Christ carried all our burdens when he carried the cross to Calvary. And yet, for some reason, we feel some sort of possessive obligation to the things that weigh us down. Our sins, our friends, our lifestyles, our occupation, our hobbies, or whatever they might be, are NOT intended to be burdens any longer! Christ already carried those!

The point is that whatever’s happened in the past, is exactly that: in the past. What matters to CHRIST, is what we do right here, right now.

Are you offering excuses to Christ, instead of devotion? Are you impeding your own relationship with Christ by dwelling on matters that aren’t important to Him anymore?