Press On

I’m Duane Matz and welcome to Today’s Living Word.

Most everyone knows the shortest verse in the Bible right? “Jesus wept.” (Jn 11:35) But do you know the second shortest verse? It’s found in  Lu 17:32 "Remember Lot's wife.”

 

In context, Jesus was talking about escaping God’s impending judgment with Lot’s wife being the example of what not to do! The angels who were leading Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah had strictly told them to “not look back,” (Gen 19:17)

 

But look what happened to Lot’s wife! Ge 19:26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

 

She looked back! We can only assume that she was longing for the old life, not willing to forsake it. This is a danger for all of us who have been pulled from the fire. When things get a little rough, we have the temptation to look back to our own personal “Egypt’s” and long for the “good old days” of living the way we pleased.

 

This was the constant problem of the Israelites as God led them to the promised land, they kept looking back to Egypt!

 

Jesus warns us in other places as well: Lu 14:33 "So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

And

Lu 9:62 "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

 

And that’s why we “remember Lot’s wife.

 

That’s why the Apostle Paul reminds us: Php 3:13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Follow Jesus! Don’t look back! All that stuff you are longing for is rubbish, destined to be like the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah! So press on beloved….press on!

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word