Verse
of the day: Philippians 3:13 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,
What benefit is there in looking
back at the past? There is none, depending on how long we stay there, and for
what reason we went there to begin with. Looking back is both profitable and unprofitable
in the Christian’s life. It can be motivation to move ahead or it can paralyze
us in our walk with the Lord. The Apostle Paul, who had much that he could
boast about, humanly speaking, as we see from verses 2-6; counted all of his
worldly accomplishments as loss and as rubbish for the sake of knowing Christ, the
power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering. Although the
Lord had used him greatly, and was continuing to use him, he did not count
himself as having “arrived”. In other words, he recognized that even though he
was not who he used to be, by God’s grace, he had certainly not attained the
state of perfection that we all strive for; and that will not be accomplished
until we are with Jesus forevermore. What enabled the Apostle to continue
moving in the right direction? It was his ability, as is ours, to choose to refuse
to live in his past failures. We know that before he came to know Jesus, he
persecuted the church (Acts 8-9). In Romans 7 he speaks of the battle that took
place in his flesh. The fact of the matter is that we all have a past. For many
of us it is a past that we would prefer to leave there, but the devils, and the
people around us, have a tendency to bring it up, and remind us, at the most
inopportune times. The memories of who we were, the sins we committed,
especially after accepting Jesus as Savior, seem to forever haunt us. The guilt
comes flooding back into our lives and we become paralyzed in our walk with the
Lord. Yet, this is not where the Lord wants us to dwell. This is not His doing
in our lives; for He convicts us when we need it, and He forgives us completely
when we repent and confess our sins to Him (1 Jn 1:8-10). The Apostle, instead
of allowing his past to cripple him in his service to the Lord, focused on what
was to come. He strived for the reward of faithfully serving Christ and finally
reaching the end of the race; the finish line for which was located in Heaven
(v. 14; 1 Cor 9:24-27; 2 Tim 4:7-8). The bottom line is that looking back and
dwelling on our past stumbling, failures, and sufferings that we did not handle
in faith, is not what God desires for us. However, He does want us to look back
and see His faithfulness; those times when He was there for us when everyone
else walked away. We must not forget those times when we were hurting and He
was the One who comforted us. We must look back and cherish those moments when
He met our needs, and forgave us for our unfaithfulness to Him. We must never
forget that our unfaithfulness to Him did not affect His faithfulness to us. He
gave us His Son, and gave us eternal life, even though He already knew how many
times we would come to Him asking forgiveness because of our offenses against Him;
yet, He continues to love us. We must look back being thankful, that even
though we have not yet “arrived”, by the grace of God we are not who we used to
be, and He continues to work in us to make us more like our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. We must always keep our eyes looking forward, at Him, and remind
ourselves of what the Apostle wrote in Philippians 1:6, being confident of this very thing, that He who
has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
No comments:
Post a Comment