The horizon is the visible line where the terrain meets the sky. It is the most distant thing you can see on the earth’s surface. Pilots use it as a reference for their attitude. The stars are further away, but they also serve as a position and directional reference for those who can read them. For those who are prepared to accept the idea there is a transcendent horizon. This is may not be visible, but it is a real source of directional reference for those who walk by faith. My word commends those who lived and died in faith, saying that they could see afar off, and sought a city with foundations in the heavens, whose builder and maker was God. How far can you see? 

I have taught you to love your enemies. Does this sound like an impossible task? Don’t pretend that you don’t have any. Do you ever have a smug sense of satisfaction when you hear about a scandal in a church much different from your own? Are you eager to spread the news? This is not a gracious attitude or act. Are you willing to see my body as a single entity? This is the image I give for my church. I point out how absurd it would be for one part of the body to say that it has no need of another part. How much more absurd would it be for the right hand to gloat because the left hand is injured? 

Do you see your doctor as having the primary responsibility for your health? Or your employer or the government or your insurance company? You do well to seek capable medical care when you need it, but you will be healthiest if you consider yourself to be primarily responsible for your health care. What about your spiritual health? Do you think that is  the pastor’s job? I assign them to watch for your souls and give an account, but you can choose your pastor in much the same way you choose your doctor. You will have the best spiritual health if you consider it your primary responsibility rather than someone else’s.

You are made to look forward and not back. Your own anatomy teaches you this lesson. It is possible to walk backwards, but it is awkward and clumsy. In like manner you can look back over your shoulder, but this is uncomfortable especially if you do it very long. You are built to look in the direction of movement and you have modern secular proverbs about watching where you are going and keeping your eyes on the road. This is obvious in a physical sense. Do you see the spiritual parallel? No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God, and run the race with your eyes on the prize of your high calling.