SCANDALOUS
June 24th, 2022
LOVE…Never Takes Failure as Defeat (v. 13:7)
1 Corinthians 13:8, 13, ‘Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which one day will fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten…Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope and love—yet love surpasses them all. So, above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.’ (TPT)
Love never looks back.
Have you ever regretted something so badly, you could do nothing other than think about all the ‘what ifs’? There was no way you could move forward into anything else because you were so stuck and immersed with the past that it sucked you in. Like quicksand, it pulled you under time and again, until you thought you might drown. Or perhaps you really did drown, in the shame and guilt, the resentment and regret. The sick feeling in the pit of your stomach became a cesspool poisoning all your thoughts, stealing your joy, wrecking any hope for the future.
That’s the enemy who does that, causes that, reminds you constantly what lies behind you and never lets you even glimpse what might lay ahead. The enemy’s biggest desire about you is to keep you buried in a landslide of yesterdays, a mountain of memories. He doesn’t like the future unless He can tether you to your past so that you carry it with you every where you go, like a ball-and-chain.
The Father is not nearly as concerned with your past as He is with your future. Just the opposite is true of Satan. The future, to the Lord, is hope and forever, purpose and promise, planting and harvesting, growth and goals. Anything positive comes from a Holy God, hand-picked and prophesied for your good and His glory. What is negative is hand-delivered like a message from the enemy of your soul who wants nothing to do with anything uplifting and praiseworthy.
Satan will beat you over the head with your past, your mistakes and shortcomings. God will use them in your life for your benefit. There is nothing ever lost or wasted in God’s economy. He is the most frugal and diligent and cautious Giver because what He has designed for you is yours alone. It has great profitability in His hands for you and is to be used by Him for the gain of His Kingdom through His purpose for you. What the world, and even others in your life—and certainly the enemy—perhaps call defeat due to a failure in your past, God calls a promise, because nothing is wasted by Him. He never has to look back because your past and mine, our lives before Jesus, were nailed to the cross, so that we could be forward-living people, moving in the direction of heaven and eternity with Him.
Genesis 35:11, ‘”I AM God and I AM more than enough.”’ (TPT)
So many weddings happen every year during the month of June; so many ‘I do’s’ are spoken that eventually become ‘I don’t’s’, because we understand so little about love, God’s love, and the progress of it, the positive hope of it. What would happen if we too loved like that and never looked back, but rather moved forward, in the direction of eternity?
