Do Not Remember

“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19 NKJV

Oswald Chambers has 2 thoughts about this verse, “Never be afraid when GOD brings back the past. Let memory have its way. GOD will turn the ‘might have been’ into a wonderful beginning for the future.” “Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him. Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.” ^A

“He came to me at night. ‘What is a year?’ asked the teacher. ‘Three hundred sixty-five days.’ I answered.

‘But in the holy language of Scripture it’s more than that. It’s called the shannah…and it contains a secret. The word shannah is linked to the number two.’

‘I don’t get the connection.’

‘Shannah can mean the second, the duplicate, or the repeat. In the course of nature the year is the repeating of what has already been…the winter, the spring, the summer, and the fall, the blossoming of flowers and their withering away, the rebirth of nature and its dying, the same progression, the same replaying of what already was. So a year is a shannah, a repetition. And now you have a new year before you. And what kind of year will it be?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The nature of nature is to repeat, just as we live, by nature, as creatures of habit. We gravitate toward doing that which we’ve done before, the same routines and courses, even when those routines and courses are harmful to us. So what will the shannah, this year, be for you?’

‘Well if the year means the repeat, I guess I don’t have much of a choice. It will be mostly the same as the one before.’

‘But you do have a choice,’ he said. ‘You see, shannah has a double meaning. It not only means the repeat…it also means the change.’

‘How can the same word mean the opposite?’

‘The same way the year ahead of you can be either. The way of the world is to repeat – but the way of GOD is the way of newness and change. You can’t know GOD and not be changed by knowing Him. And His will is that the year, the shannah ahead, be not a time of repetition but of change, of new beginnings, new steps, of breaking out of the old. And if you want to experience a year of new things, you must choose to live not in the repetition of the natural, but in the newness of the supernatural. Choose to walk not in your will but in the will of Him who is beyond the natural and beyond all that is old. As it is written, He makes all things new. Open up your life to the newness of His will, and you will walk in the newness of life and in the shannah of change.”

The Mission: Today, step out of your old ways, habits, and steps. Do what you’ve never done before but should have. Walk in the newness of the Spirit.

Isaiah 43:19; Romans 6:4; 2 Corinthians 5:17 ^B

^A My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, Copyright 1988, Garborg’s Heart ‘N Home, Inc.

These were the quotes for January 1^st and December 31^st.

^B The Book Of Mysteries, Jonathan Cahn, Copyright 2016, Published by FrontLine Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group.

This was mystery 3.