31
Jan '19
Forgetting What is Behind (By Dan Adams)
31
Jan '19
During the month of January, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my goals for the coming year. I want to learn, change, and grow in a number of significant areas. To that end, I’ve been working on several habits in my life. Similarly, I’ve been challenging our church family to focus on our habits, or spiritual disciplines, to help us pursue Christ-likeness.
The last two of the habits we discussed focused on faithful stewardship: of our finances, and of our time and talents. Good stewards recognize that everything we have is from God, and seek to manage faithfully what’s been entrusted to them. That’s what we ought to strive for.
This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful (1 Corinthians 4:1-2).
But I have to admit, I haven’t always been faithful. As I think back over my life, I can easily come up with examples of times that I’ve wasted my money or squandered my time. I don’t think I’m alone. As we reflect back over wasted time and money, it’s easy and natural to feel regret, to wish we had chosen differently, or even to become fixated on our past failures.
While it’s healthy to learn from our past, it’s not healthy to live in the past. The Apostle Paul encourages us, “…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul certainly had a past that he wasn’t proud of – years of his life wasted persecuting Christ and the church. So Paul’s encouragement to us comes right out of his own personal life and struggle.
If you’re one who struggles with regrets from your past – I want to encourage you, too. When we confess our past sins and failures, God promises to forgive and wipe the slate clean (1 John 1:9). God deeply loves all of His children. Nothing can separate us from His love. And He still has a plan and a purpose for you going forward. Listen to these precious words from God through Paul:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – what is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present not things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39).
As a friend recently reminded me – the rearview mirror is small for a reason. Let’s look forward with eager expectation to what God wants to do in and through us moving forward.