A Different Direction

Verse 13-Forgetting those things which are behind

Sometimes we get obsessed with the past.

Two kinds of people-Those who get stressed out because of every thing that has went wrong in the past.

Then there are those who look to the future but haven’t learned anything from the past.

Paul gives us a key here, if we are to understand what he is saying.

We enter a new life with Christ and our past, is once and for all put behind us.

Satan loves to come to us with our past sins and failures.

If he can get us to dwell on what use to be before we became a Christian, he can neutralizes us and any way we might be used of the Lord!

Paul is saying, “I’m committed in forgetting those things in the past.”

If you know Paul, you know that he had a lot to forget, he was a persecutor of Christians , he gave his consent in the death of Steven.

The Lord said, “No one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

When Paul uses the word forget, he is not talking about failing to remember, on one has the power to erase what has happen in their life.

What he is saying is, refusing to be influenced negatively by the things in the past.

God has promised to forget our sins the same way.

Hebrews 10:17

God is not saying He has developed a bad memory, He is saying He will no longer hold our sins against us.

Our sins will no longer affect our standing with God or influence His attitude toward us.

We have to make a conscience decision that the past is the past and you will not let it control the present or the future.

“I know God has forgiven me but I can’t forgive myself!”

Do you have a higher standard than God?

Diligent Determination -Reaching forward to those things which are ahead.

An old man in a prison cell, with his parchments and his pen, with all this accomplishment in the past, writing these words.

He saying, “I’m fired up about the future, that life with God has no reservations.”

Most people say, “Oh, let the younger ones do it, I’ve done it all these years!”

We are pursuing, we are intensely after the goal of knowing Christ better!

Verse 14-I press toward the goal.

It is a athlete who runs without swerving of course, straining every muscle and running with all his might, not looking back but keeping his eye on the goal.

The football with the white tip on the end.

You may feel the cost is more high than you want to pay, the energy more than you desire to give for the high calling of the Lord Jesus, but it is worth more than you can ever imagine.

There is joy in the striving, and the going after, and in the arriving!

Vince Lambartee-I’ve never known a man worth his salt, who in the long run, deep down in his heart didn’t appreciate the grind and discipline. There is something in good men that yearns for discipline, I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, his greatest fulfillment and all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out and lays exhausted on the field of battle….victorious!

Your greatest fulfillment is when you stand before God and He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”