YouVersion

We look back, and we ‘give thanks to the Lord’, remembering ‘the wonderful works that He has done’ (1 Chronicles 16:8,12). We look forward, committing our future to the Lord in prayer, looking to Him to fulfil the promise He gives to those who call upon Him in heartfelt prayer: ‘If My people who are called by My Name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land’ (2 Chronicles 7:14).
What will the future hold for us? One thing we can say is this: there is work to be done – God’s work. God is calling us to do His work and He will give us the strength that we need (Ezra 1:2,5). ‘At such a time is this’, a time when many are turning away from the Lord, showing little or no interest in worshipping and serving Him, a time when many are living according to the world’s standards with no real desire to please God and do His will, God is looking for people who will make a whole-hearted commitment to a life of serving Him. He is looking for people who will say, ‘Serving the Lord – this must be the great priority of my life, the most important thing’ (Esther 4:14,16).
Serving the Lord will not be easy. There will be many times when we will feel like giving up. We will be tempted to follow the crowd rather than following our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. When it seems that we are in danger of being overwhelmed by such temptations, we must say, ‘I have decided to follow Jesus’. We must remember that Jesus went to the Cross for us and we must say, ‘There will be “no turning back”’. We must not by put off by those who have no real love for the Lord: ‘Though none go with me, I still will follow’. We must make our choice: ‘The world behind me, the Cross before me. No turning back.’

Sometimes, as we serve the Lord, we may wonder, ‘What’s this all about? Where is the Lord in all of this?’ When such thoughts fill our minds, we must take encouragement from God’s Word: ‘He knows the way that I take’ (Job 23:10). We must remember God’s great faithfulness (Lamentations 3:23). In the Lord our God, we find ‘strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.’ As we look to the Lord, we will catch a glimpse of His eternal purpose for us (Ecclesiastes 3:11) – He is ‘fitting us for heaven to live with Him there.’