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.
— Philippians 3:13–14
Read the above verse again, it says "one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead . . ." (Philippians 3:13).
The writer Paul (like many of us) had committed horrible things, hunting down Christians and throwing them in prison. Yet he said, "I am forgetting it. I am not going to be crippled by my past." So I am asking you “why are you still troubling yourself because of something that happened in the past?” You can’t go back and change it, can you? So you might as well take the advice of the above verse and move on, right?
Our adversary the devil desires nothing more than to cripple you with your past, he whispers in your ear things like "You are an awful person because you did….” Or
“Remember what you used to do?” can you believe you did that he says.Paul, the writer of Philippians put his past behind him and moved forward as a new person in Christ. You can do that, too. The Bible says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).You say, "I have done some pretty bad things." Welcome to the club! We all have sinned. We have all fallen short (see Romans 3:23). But God can change you and make you a different person on the inside. It's so great to say, "I'm not looking back. I am moving forward as a Christian."
Remember when Lot's wife looked back (Genesis 19:26). She was led by the angels and actually left Sodom and Gomorrah with her family. She was almost out of that place. But she didn't get far enough. She just had to steal that one last backward glance.
The lesson of Lot's wife is clear: don't look back.
Don't let that happen to you. You can be crippled by past failures and past sins. Or you can put them behind you as you start over again and you follow Jesus Christ, what say you?
“A cross around the neck is no substitute for a cross on your back.”
In the youth/young adult ministry at my church we study something called Kingdom Mentalities, which are basically a collection of statements that speak to the type of mindset we need to have to be citizens of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom Mentality #5 reads "Who I am and what I am called to do have been established by royal decree. There is nothing that I, or anyone else has done or can do to decrease my innate value and worth in the kingdom." (Based on Romans 11:29)
ReplyDeleteI think that really relates to what you said about the devil trying to whisper in our ears, and constantly remind us of our past. Sometimes when we look at our past, we think that we are not worthy of God's love. We feel that we have lost our connection to Him, but we have to constantly remind ourselves that when we accept Christ we are renewed and God loves us unconditionally no matter how much we may not love ourselves for our the mistakes that we have made.
What immediately jumps out at me are the verbs - "forgetting" and "reaching." These are not things that we do once and for all, this is a journey, a process; we must continually do these things. Even the words "I press" shows that this is a struggle. As we fill ourselves with the Word of God, and thus, renew our minds, we are transformed or changed. Therefore, we are less likely to hear and believe what the devil says to us, about us. Bathing in the Word of God enables what God says to drown out what satan says; so when he says "you are a loser", we hear and believe, and thus say, "I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus." In order to press, you must push against something or someone. Usually when you press, there is some resistance on the other end. "Resist the devil and he will flee." We resist the devil when we say what God says, rather than what he says or what we feel; we resist the devil when we laugh when we should be crying; we resist the devil when we praise God despite our circumstances. Keep forgetting, keep reaching, and PRESS!!!
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