Pre-Centennial Thoughts

Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV)
18. Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19. See, I am doing a new thing! Now, it springs up;
Do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the
Wasteland.

This scripture is one of my favorites. How many of us go through life by “living in the past”? Not desiring change and wanting our lives to be “just what they’ve always been”.

Many of our holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas including Biblical ones such as the Passover focus on the past. We are told to celebrate communion. Because of this, we must not draw the conclusion that dwelling on the past is necessarily wrong. Sometimes it is very good and necessary.

The past has many great testimonies of God and His mighty acts, but our lives can't stop there. Did you ever meet someone who always says what great things God did (such as saving him) but never says what great things God is doing for us now? God is not saying that the past things are unimportant but only that He is the Living God and lives to make a difference every day of our lives.

This week-end of celebrating our Centennial, we will be focusing on our past. It is my prayer that it will also be a spring board into our future. We need to remember our past and celebrate in it but not get so encumbered that we lose our vision of what God has in store for our community. There comes a time to ’let go’ so that He can work His mighty works in our land!

This not only applies to our immediate community but to every community across the nation and around the world….”Let go and let God!”

Our pastor, in his weekly message mail-out to members, followed this same theme. With his permission, I am submitting it in this post for you to read and reflect.

God Bless! Let go and let God!

Toward A New Hope
By Pastor James D. Jackson, Jr.

Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!”
Romans 15:13 (the Message)

The main idea that I have been gleaning from the Centennial play is “pulling together for the common good.” Not only was this the main idea that brought Munday together a century ago, but it is the main idea behind our efforts, led by Karen Longan, to bring about this play. The Munday community of 2006 is pulling together to pull this play off. But this is also true of the whole Centennial celebration: we are pulling together to celebrate our very existence as a community.

Over the past few weeks, I have enjoyed looking over the history of Munday, especially the earliest of days of our church as a congregation. Noticing the name of our early congregation, New Hope Baptist Church, I began to pray that God would lead us to be a church offering new hope in the future to our community and world. What would this involve? How would we do it? Where will it lead us and to whom? Though I don’t have the answers yet, I look forward to pursuing them together.

With our past in mind, I pray we will be stirred toward a new hope for the future, especially as the faith community known as First Baptist Church, Munday, Texas. I pray we will set our new hope high on God, trusting Him to lead us to grow in our faith and love for Him through Jesus Christ, and as we seek to serve and love others by the power of the Holy Spirit, I pray that we will then pursue the future celebrations of God’s goodness when lives are changed. My hope is that we will “pull together for the common good” for the glory and kingdom of God, whose glory will last forever and ever. We’re in this together and I am pulling (and praying) for you.