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Don’t look back
In Genesis 19, we read about the destruction of the sinful towns Sodom and Gomorrah. God decided to completely flatten the towns for their wickedness, but He allowed Lot and his family to escape, with the instruction, ‘“Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”…But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt’ (Genesis 19:17, 26 NLT). Instead of looking ahead to the place of safety, she looked back to her old life. God says, ‘Those who are right with me will live by faith. But if thy turn back with fear, I will not be pleased with them.’ In Hebrews 11 we find a list of ordinary people who refused to turn back, even when times were bad. ‘If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them’ (Hebrews 11:15-16 NLT). Satan will use every trick in the book to get us off track in our walk with God. As we go further with God, Satan will try to discourage us by whispering that we’re not good enough. He’ll remind us of all our faults and failures, and try to persuade us that our old life was better. But we mustn’t listen to him. Instead, we should be more determined than ever to stay focused on God, and refuse to look back to anything He’s told us to leave behind. He has something much better ahead.
What Now?
Pray that you’ll stay focused on God and life with Him. Ask Him to help you withstand any temptations to go back to your old life and the things He’s told us to leave behind.
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