5LC22.     Isaiah 43:16-21.    The Lord did wondrous things for the Hebrews in the past.  However he says, “Remember not of the events of the past.” “See, I am doing something new!”  “For I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink.”  God in his love for us wants us to always look forward to what more he has for us.

John 8:1-11.  The scribes and the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus by making him choose to obey the Jewish Law and so go against the Roman law that forbid the Jews from putting people to death.  Of course, Jesus chose neither but rather forgiveness.  So he challenged the adulterous woman to live a new sinless life.  When we sin, Jesus calls us to repent and to begin again anew, “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead.” (Philippians 3:13b)

Philippians 3:8-14.  Paul wrote, “For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” “Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”  Our journey through this life to heaven is leaving behind all that is not of Christ so that we grow more in Christ.