"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before."

In pursuing his goals as a Christian and worker for the Lord, Paul refused to let his past guilt pull him down, or to cause him to relax in his achievements. He set his eyes on the road ahead, on the battles that must be fought and didn't waste time sitting around feeling bad about his mistakes or the wrongs done him by others. He was able to say later that he had "fought a good fight." Some people are not going forward for the Lord because they spend too much time looking back to see the future when our eyes are on the past!
 

We all have a lot of regrets from our past, to allow them to cripple us now in achieving our goal is to give place to the devil. He is the one that is the accuser of the brethren, he is the one that is constantly stands and points a crooked finger down the road of our past. No matter what sins may lie there, God has forgiven them if we have repented...and then he casts them into the depths of the sea and "remembers them no more." God chooses to "forgive and forget," now, if we could forget them ourselves!

2nd Corinthians 5:17 says..."Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."  We have been cleansed from all our past...We are not the same person we once were! Praise the Lord!  Whom the Son has set free is free indeed!

 

We have all heard the story of Lot's wife and how she looked back...Jesus even mentioned her in Luke 17:32, telling us not to go back...this could show us not to go back to our old ways...I don't think the Lord is pleased when we constantly live the past...either in reviving old hurts and tearing open old wounds, or in meditating about the "good old days!" It's time for the church of the Living God to begin to "reach forth" for the better things that God has for us in the future.

 

Some of us have deep hurts to our spirits from abuse of the past...the way of the world is to go back, dig into those things..."deal with them." But I think that the ways of God are to lay all the past down on the alter and allow them to die there...God can heal our bodies and He can also heal the inner man and make us completely whole. The more we dwell on these things the deeper the hurt goes...we are taught by the word of God to forgive those who have sinned against us...it is a lot easier to forgive  someone if we pray and allow God to cleanse our hearts from bitterness that has built up there from all the past hurts.
 

Is it easy to "forgive and forget?" NO!! It is not...and we

can't do it alone and it won't happen over night...but is
we spend more time in prayer, in study of God's word

and in applying it to our lives it will happen and it will

be a complete work...God tells us to mediate on His
commandments day and night. I don't know about you, but as for me I can only meditate one thing at a time!! I refuse to allow Satan to make me feel like a victim and torment me with the past...I am new I have been born again!

 

In Psalms 121:1 we read " I will lift up mine eyes unto
the hills, from whence cometh my help. (2) My help
cometh from the Lord which made Heaven and earth."
If we will get our eyes on God and keep them there
instead of looking back...if we will trust Him to take
care of the wrongs done to us, then in time we will be
healed. Jesus says in Luke 9:62 that "No man having
put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit
(suitable) for the kingdom of God."

 

We can't do the work that God would like for us to
do if we spend too much time worrying about the
past...either our wrongs or those done to us. God is
is a right now God  and He wants us to keep our eyes
on Him and on the goal set before us!