20 – 20 Foresight?

It’s that time of year again.  Time to look backward and evaluate the present year now ending.  Time to look forward and plan for the new year directly ahead.  If you’re like most people, you want to celebrate accomplishments, and learn from this year’s mistakes, to maximize your success and minimize your failures in the year ahead. 
We’ve all learned, usually the hard way, that hindsight is 20 – 20.  We can all look back and see where we could have made better choices, listened more to good advice, been less impulsive in our actions, and given more thought to the consequences of our decisions.  In retrospect, we now know that the all fruit diet doesn’t work weight wonders for us.  Mom and Dad do indeed have a degree of wisdom, and there would be less strain on our pocketbook, if we’d given more thought to gas mileage before signing the sales contract on that new fully-loaded SUV.
Experience is indeed a powerful teacher, but is it necessarily the best teacher?  Can’t there be a less painful, more positive way to acquire the knowledge to succeed?  Wouldn’t it be great if we knew that certain events were going to happen and could put ourselves in the right place, at the right time, with the right people to take maximum advantage of the circumstances?  Wouldn’t it be great if we could have 20 – 20 foresight?
We all want to live a life that is meaningful, successful and significant.  We’d like to feel that with every year that passes, we are making real progress in having this kind of life.  Did you know that God shares this desire for your life?  Jesus tells us that He came so that we could enjoy a fulfilling, abundant life. (John 10:10)
How does God give us a more meaningful, successful and significant life?  Well for one thing He knows everything.  He actually has 20 – 20 foresight.  He gives us principles for living that position us to have an abundant life.  And He has life goals of great significance for each of us.  Life goals that will use all our abilities and talents, fulfill our hearts’ desires and make our lives exciting and enjoyable.
He calls each of us to be a reformer, a world changer and a history maker.  And He shares principles to live by that will accomplish this in our life.  He tells us to forget hindsight and rely on His foresight instead.  “Forgetting all that is past and behind, strain toward what is ahead.  Press on to the goal to win the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 3:13b-14)
Let this be the year you let God’s foresight, rather than your hindsight, direct your decisions and actions.  For the next two months I will be sharing eight God given principles that will transform your life, and through you, the world around you.  Open yourself to God’s timeless wisdom and enjoy life to the max!
Please come and join us this Sunday, the first Sunday of 2011, at 10:30AM, to discover the first life principle.  My sermon, “By God’s Grace, I Will Live a Life of Love,” is part 1 in our new series on “The Reformer’s Pledge.”