Pressing On in 2021

“Are the things we’re doing helping us or hindering us from making progress in the one thing that is most important—the one thing that will matter for eternity?”

Each night after supper during the month of December, my family would stay around the table reading through Nancy Guthrie’s wonderful family advent devotional Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room. The question above was the question that she posed on the final reading of the book. On the last day of the year, looking ahead to the year to come, we were pressed to consider—are the things that we typically give ourselves to, the things we focus on and give our energy and resources to, are they helping us love and follow Jesus, or are they hindering us from loving and following Jesus?

Two paragraphs down, Nancy Guthrie asked a similar question: “What would it look like to ‘press on’ toward knowing and enjoying Christ as you and your family enter another year?”

For you as an individual and for your family, how would you answer those two questions?

As you look ahead to 2021, what specifically do you need to do to make progress in following Jesus? What might you need to change from your normal pattern of life? What might you need to stop doing?

To know Jesus more at the end of 2021 than you did at the end of 2020, what can you do over the months ahead?

What about making Jesus known to your neighbors and to the nations? What’s something you or your family can do to take a step forward in that area in the next year?

These are great questions to consider as we turn the calendar to a new year, not only as individuals and families, but also as a church. That’s part of what we’ll consider this coming Sunday at Mountain Creek. What can we be doing to be sure that together we’re making progress in the thing that matters most, loving and following Jesus?

Even in an ongoing pandemic, with all of its challenges, hardships, and heartache, we’re to keep our focus on things above, on Christ. As Pastor Rhett pointed out yesterday, even in hardship we’re to continue to meditate on God’s Word (see Psalm 119:23). For the apostle Paul, even in prison and facing possible death, his desired nothing less than to “press on toward the goal” (see Philippians 3:14). And the same is true for us. No matter what we face, we’re to seek His face, as a church, as families, as individuals.

Spend some time this week thinking over Nancy Guthrie’s two questions, and join us Sunday at 9:00 or 10:30 in our sanctuary, or at 10:30 online, as we consider together how we can press on in loving and following Jesus in 2021.

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Bert Watts has served since December 2016 as the Senior Pastor at Mountain Creek Baptist Church, where he has been on staff since 2012.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash