LEARNING DAILY

 

Philippians 3:13, No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. (From the New Living Bible)

 

Too many of us spend too much time focusing on what has been done in the past. There is the “want to have done different”, “wish we had done different”, and guilt or loss due to what was done or said; thoughts that haunt us. I have plenty of them! Has any of you been able to change the past or change what has occurred?

 

Paul sees himself as a runner in a race who is exerting all his strength and energy pressing on so he does not fall short of becoming one with Christ. Read the verses before verse 13 and you will see that Paul’s total focus was to be one with Christ and to be resurrected with Him when He died. He was not interested on resting on all the achievements in his life. No this was his entire focus in life. The DJSB states Paul’s single goal was “to continue to strive until its completion, undeterred by obstacles or taunts of the crowd; to be disciplined to forget – refusing to be paralyzed or rendered complacent by the past; and be disciplined to intensely pursuing the calling of the Christian life until victory has been won.” Paul had received a vision of heaven and he had determined that his entire life would be centered around his determination to move forward on the narrow way, to someday walk into heaven and see Jesus Christ face to face.

 

Think for a moment about the difficulties faced by Paul in his life. He was rejected by men, stoned and left for dead, spent a lot of time in jails that were far different from what we have today, and had to have been haunted by Christians he had hunted and persecuted for their beliefs. If anyone could have been troubled by their past, it was Paul; instead, he lived an uncompromising testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

That is the determination you and I must have as we live our lives among all sorts of distractions, temptations, the worries, the riches and evil desires of this life that threaten to get each of us off of the narrow way that leads to eternal life in God’s kingdom. Paul’s writing needs to be an encouragement to each of us to forget the things of our past and the old life we lived before entering the gate of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. You and I are not going to be perfect as we live in this world. When we mess up, and we will, “we confess our sin to the One who is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9) and move forward, striving to live the way the Lord wants us to live.

 

You and I must move forward as we walk on the narrow way. We must not walk in the past, stuck holding on to regrets, feelings of guilt for things done or said, remembering things that should have been done, and holding grudges. Those things do no one any good.  They need to be forgotten and given to the Lord in order for us to move forward, as we reach for the heavenly prize of eternal life in His presence forever.

 

From now on DJSB will be used to note information or quotes from the David Jeremiah Study Bible and LSSB will refer to information and quotes from the Life in the Spirit Study Bible.  I have added Jimmy Swaggart’s Expositor’s Study Bible to be referred to from now on as JSESB.