AppNotes

January 6, 2021

I’m not a sports fan, but I am a movie fan, and I’ve watched Remember the Titans half a dozen times. The final play in the final game, Coach tells the quarterback to hand off the ball to another player, who is just going to run. His teammate will run alongside and knock any members of the other team out of the way, so he has a wide-open field. He takes off running. He assumes his teammate, off his left side and slightly behind, is doing his part, and he never looks back. In this passage, God tells us to not look back. “Do not dwell on the past. See! I’m doing a new thing.” What is this new thing? Our sins are forgiven. It’s time to rethink how we interact with our past. God isn’t looking at them anymore. Why are we? Look forward. God is doing a new thing. 

Bible Reading

Isaiah 43:16-25 NIV
This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. “Yet you have not called on me, Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, Israel. You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with grain offerings nor wearied you with demands for incense. You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me, or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses. “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.