What Remains
"You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending". C.S. Lewis
So many people can get stuck in their mistakes. Looking back can make it hard to move forward in life. We not only need the forgiveness of God in our lives, but we need to trust His forgiveness as being good enough to help us get unstuck. The world would have us move forward in the wrong direction, convincing us that we should “have no regrets”.
Have your regrets, ask for forgiveness at the cross of Christ, and move on to a better more righteous way of living. This is the only way to move on to the right path without being hindered. With peace in our lives we can breath easy and know in the depths of our souls, that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover all sins. In this aspect, what remains is our lives should be a living sacrifice to the will of God. The ultimate reward yet awaits us in heaven.
If at the end of our lives God takes everything that we have done and He puts it into His holy fire and what’s left is “what remains”, then what do we have?
1 Corinthians 3:12-13
12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
Now is the time to take the opportunity and make assessments of what we are presently doing in own our lives that may be burnt up in the fire. We need to ask ourselves, if Christ came back today for His church, what would I have of worth in my life to offer Him?
Sometimes God asks us to endure things that from a worldy perspective seem unfair or unjust or unreasonable. Some people may never understand your obedience in certain situations. For instance, in marriage. People are so quick to give in to frustrations and disappointments in their marriage. Divorce seems like such an easy option during the toughest times.
One of the greatest tests of love can happen among married couples. However, life can bring to us the challenge of loving others in many other situations. The workplace, in public, our neighbors, abusive family members etc.,
God’s word describes love in a much different way than the world around us perceives it. How we choose to love expresses our deepest belief about what we believe about love.
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, bso as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 cIf I give away all I have,and dif I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 eLove is patient and fkind; love gdoes not envy or boast; it his not arrogant5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;2 6 itkdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but lrejoices with the truth. 7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, eendures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,even as rI have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Oh the mysteries of God! We need to pray for understanding during the hardest and most trying times of our lives. We all need to ask the Lord for the ability to love people supernaturally. This kind of love is not of this world. But, the Lord can give us the ability to live it out as we pursue Him daily and pray for strength.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
1 John 5:19
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
1 John 2:17
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 4:5
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
John 17:16
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.