Begin 2023 by forgetting those things which are behind and reaching for what is ahead

Welcome to episode 341. In this episode, I'm gonna set the goal for myself for this year in 2023, and I want to encourage you that I think that it will help you as well. This one thing I'm gonna do, and we're gonna get ready. But before we start, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I was praying this morning for guidance and direction, and the thought that I had was this one thing. That I should do? What's the one thing that I'm gonna do? And I was reminded of Paul, what Paul said in Philippians, this one thing that I do. And that's the scripture that I want to bring. I want to kind of shoot from the hip a little bit. I haven't done that for a while. I want to show you what God showed me in his word this morning. We're going to go to Philippians 3:7-14. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformed to his death, if by any means I may obtain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And I'm going to stop there. I want to just encourage you. As I was praying and as I was reaching out to God, he reminded me of this scripture. And if you've ever tried to do a bunch of stuff for God— sometimes I feel like, man, there's so much more I could do for God, and there's so much more that I want to do for God. God reminded me, hey, this one thing you can do. And it focused me down to what's the one thing that I get fired up about doing, and one thing I look forward to doing, and that is encouraging you to get into the word of God and allow the word of God to get into you. Because Satan is a punk. We hate him. We know this. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. God came to give us abundant life. We know that if you're a fanatic, but it is very confusing in this world that we're living in. It seems like, and I'm speaking for myself, I feel like I'm constantly going, constantly trying something to see if this is going to work, to see what I'm going to do. And this one thing I'm going to do, and I've talked about this before, I want to hear Father God say, well done, my good and faithful servant. And I also read the scripture that said when Jesus comes back, will he find faith here on earth? And that the just, the justified, the saved, the righteous shall live by faith. And there's a lot of scriptures that go into the faith walk. It feels like God is putting a spotlight in my life on faith. How can you, Greg Ryan, walk by faith? And as I take steps of faith, as I take steps in this spirit realm, I'm going to just allow you to come with me. I've got a plan. I've got a 9-step plan to take this journey of faith, and it's from the beginning of salvation all the way to well done, my good and faithful servant. I've had it on paper for a long time. I wrote it out again yesterday, and it's— to me, it excites me that I've got a path. I've got something that I can follow and that I can do to know that I'm trying my best. I'm gonna mess up. We love Romans 8:1. Because it says there's now therefore no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. We are not called to be perfect. God is perfect. God sent his Son to live a perfect life and to die the death that you and I deserve to die. But we don't have to be perfect. And Paul, I think, says it perfect here. Is this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind me Paul was probably the next person in line. He was a fanatic for the law. Paul was there when Stephen, first martyr in the church, got stoned. Paul was there. He was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. This guy was on the fast path to being the head of the church that they knew in that day. He was looking to be and was just grinding to be that guy. And you read what Paul said after he met Jesus. He says he counts all those things. It says in this translation as rubbish, but in other translations it says dung. He treats them as like dog doo-doo. He says, look, this is not worth anything that I've done. When we're starting this new year, and God's so cool, I call this him winking at me. This one thing he said, forgetting those things which are behind. In a New Year's message, I believe we all could hear that. We've all made mistakes. We've all had some victories. We've all done some things in 2022 that we're either proud of, ashamed of, wish we wouldn't have done. But this one thing I do— what is the one thing that God's called you to do? And forget all this other stuff. You can say, hey, I've done this, or I've done that. You pop your chest out like you've done something. Are we building God's kingdom? Are the things that you did in 2022, was it to build your kingdom or was it to build God's kingdom? And I just wanna encourage you, you don't have to quit your job and you don't have to go to some monastery. We talked about the 4 things that we can do and we're gonna talk about the wheel in the middle of the wheel again. I know, I know you love that stuff. We're gonna get after this faith walk. We're gonna have to take some steps. We're gonna have to fall down. We're gonna have to pick ourselves up. We're gonna have to brush ourselves off. We're gonna have to take some more steps. And we're gonna learn to walk. I pretty much know how to fall. I can fall pretty good. But it's the steps, it's the walking, and then it's the jogging, and it's the running. Look, one thing at a time though. We're gonna learn to take some steps. I've been walking in Christ for a long time, and I just feel like God is finally saying, "Hey, go. Start doing this." I'm gonna give you permission. I'm gonna throw this door open for you and I'm gonna walk through it. So in 2023, I'm gonna be relentless. I am gonna be fearless and I'm gonna be focused. God gave me a new word. Praise God. It's been around my head, rattling around for a long time, but focused is a key in 2023 to remain focused. And I'm talking about on Christ. I'm focused on him. When you look at Christ and you start walking towards him and the direction and imitating him, I believe my life is going to be exceedingly abundantly above all that I can ask or think, but it's according to the power that works in me. I've got to pull that power out. I know how to do it. I've just got to do it, and I'm going to show you how I do that. Through the next year in my teaching. I just wanted a little bit of shooting from the hip. This is kind of fresh to me. This is what God spoke to me this morning, and I just wanted to share it with you. I want to welcome you on the journey in 2023. There's a couple of things that I've threatened to do in the last 2 years, and it was interviewing people. I think God's calling me to pull other people in to this audience and then allow you to see what Christ is doing in other people. It's not just this fanatic. There are fanatics everywhere, and I want to lift them up. I want to encourage them. And if any little thing that I can do to bring them on, I want to hear their story and let you hear their story. I'll probably have one episode a week. I don't know if I'll add an episode or make it Thursday's episode. I don't know, but I'm going to interview some people in 2023. I'm excited about it. I hope you are. I just want to thank you for being a part of this community. I want to thank you for being a fanatic, and I want to thank you, and I want to encourage you to get into the word of God. Allow the word of God to get into you, and let's get after this thing. Let's get after— let's kick Satan's teeth out. He's a punk. We hate him. He hates us, so let's hate him back, and we are going to hate him by binding him up and casting him out and loving on the people that he's trying to manipulate. We're not going to have that anymore. We're going to work on this one thing. We're not going to get— go chasing this rabbit. I can feel myself going off on another tangent, so let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you, Holy Spirit, for leading me to all truth. I thank you for speaking to me through your word this morning, and I pray that you would speak to this listener and allow them to get encouraged by your word. Holy Spirit, be with them in 2023. It says you'll never leave them nor forsake them. No, let them know that you are there right now with them. And God, I thank you, I love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.gregryan.com. Www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com