LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.  Philippians 3:13

REFERENCE
Philippians 3:13-14

Look at your anatomy, why do you think God placed your eyes in front of your head and not at the back? God knows that your motion in life will always be in the direction of your vision. He expects your life to be a progressive one, from glory to glory, and there is nobody who makes progress by looking backward.

The temptation at this point in the year or season of life is to predict the remainder of the year or life by the earlier part or the past. Things may have happened in your past, that tend to make you begin to judge and determine your future by them. But God will never consult your past to determine your future. Your yesterday is in the tomb and your tomorrow is in the womb. Your history has nothing to do with your destiny.

Unfortunately, many have become prisoners of their past and have given their past so much power to control them. They live in the mistakes of the past, in the heartbreak of the past, in past relationships, disappointments, hurts, offences, pains, miscarriages, bereavements, etc.

But that’s not how God wants us to live. God is a dynamic and progressive God; He does not want us to know Him as the God of the past, but the God of now. He said in Hebrews 8:12, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” He moves on and only those who are not encumbered by the past can move with Him.

Lot’s wife is a typical example of someone who couldn’t let go of her past. She looked to her past when she was supposed to look forward to the glorious future God had for her, and that stagnated her forever. Likewise, many things cannot happen in your life until you leave your past and go with God into the future He has designed for you.

Paul said in our text, “One Thing I Do, Forgetting the Past…” You cannot successfully go forward in life without forgetting (or even forgiving) the past. Paul had to forget his pain, imprisonment, desertion, floggings, shipwrecks, stoning, betrayal by his people, etc. Though he was in prison, it was a choice he had to make.

Make a conscious effort today to move on in faith for new realities regardless of past experiences. Don’t look back! You can’t be content with where you’ve come from; it’s where you’re going that’s important! No matter what you’ve been through, let this encourage you: “God has prepared a place for you; He is only preparing you for that place.”

ADDITIONAL STUDY
Genesis 19:12 – 26, Isaiah 43:18-19, & Revelation 21:4-5.

CONFESSION
I declare today that I am going forward and backward never. Yesterday may not have been good, answers to my desires may not have come and I may have been hurt. But I choose to step out of the shadows of my past. I move out of the old order, the old season and the old pattern. I move into a new season of life. My beginning may have been small, but my end shall increase with great abundance in Jesus’ name.

PHOTO QUOTE