The Christian life is an uphill battle; if we stop climbing or keep looking back down at our past, it will cause us to slip up and backslide. We must press on! The Christian life does not plateau out. There is no point in your Christian life where you stop advancing in your walk with Christ and take a “spiritual break.” If you advance up till a level, and then decide to take it easy, beware. Once you start taking ease, you will look at the world or at other Christians more carnal than yourself, and start liking their lifestyle. You will tire of your uphill walk with Christ and desire to join them. A “spiritual break” is the beginning of a backslide! If you are not front-climbing, you will soon be backsliding. If you are not continually seeking to grow in your walk with the Lord, you will soon be backsliding. When you are fighting a spiritual warfare, and the battle starts to really heat up, and Satan and his devils are attacking as fiercely as they can, that IS NOT the time to take a break from the front lines of the battle. If you retreat from where the battle is greatest, what reason will you have not to retreat from where the battle is lessor? Once you’ve taken a rest from the heat of the battle, you will want more ease, and withdraw to where the battle is even lessor. Before you know, you will be FLEEING from the scene of the battle! Oh how strange for a soldier of the victorious army to flee from the battle! NO, do not rest. Keep fighting the good fight. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called…. 1 Tim 6:12. Charge the adversary, wearing the full armor of God, and drive him backwards! Let him know that Jesus Christ is the victor! When you flee the battle, you are telling the devil that Jesus has failed!! NO, keep fighting on! 1 Tim 2:3-4 3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. We are supposed to resist UNTO BLOOD when striving against sin. The battle is NOT supposed to look pleasant. It is a bloody fight between good and evil, holiness and wickedness, righteousness and sinfulness. Ye have NOT yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. Heb 12:4 Therefore, continuing to strive for that higher calling. Seek a closer relationship with Christ. Grow in your faith. Fight the good fight. If you walk with Christ while looking backwards at your past, you will stumble.
It is much harder to climb a hill looking backwards than forwards. I like to go hiking. Often, I will walk up a hill backwards to exercise a different muscle group. If you try this, you will quickly notice that it’s much harder to do than walking forward. Walking backwards is hard enough, yet along uphill! Yet many Christians try to do this in their lives; they try to go forward and upward, but they are looking backwards. Just as walking up a hill backwards is hard, and you tend to want to quit, so is living the Christian life “in the past,” always reminding yourself of your past. If you keep looking backwards, you will never see to look forwards. How can you see where you are going if you keep looking behind? You’re going to end up tripping and falling on that “narrow way” that leadeth to life. The reason that many Christians are discouraged is because they keep looking behind, to their old sinful past. Phil 3:13-14 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Paul was not looking back, he was looking ahead, to the top of the hill, looking for the prize of the high calling of God. He wanted that high calling. You should want it, too. But in order to get the high calling, you must go up. You can’t be looking backwards, down the hill at your past. You must look up the hill, pressing on toward the prize. And it is much, much easier to press toward the prize when you are looking forward. How can you see the prize ahead when you are walking backwards. How can you find the prize, when you cannot see where you are going? Forget those things which are behind, and look forward, toward the prize. Therefore, strive to be holy, strive to live the Christian life. Repent and FORSAKE any sin that you may know of, and ask the Lord to reveal all your sins. Look toward your future with Christ, not your past with sin. Fight the good fight! Remember that Jesus is the victor; He will give you victory. Continue pressing onward toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus!
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