A HOLY FORGET'R

A HOLY FORGET'R

People drag their failures from the past, their sins from the past, their broken and toxic relationships from the past, their lost opportunities from the past, like a wagon. This weighted wagon slows them down, sometimes pulls them backwards, drains their strength, determines their course, distracts their focus, limits their possibilities and keeps them from their goal. In fact, ties to a negative past can keep us from the first resurrection (the resurrection from among the dead). Choosing to be dominated by the past is living by fear and doubt rather than living by faith, and the believer in Christ lives by faith.

We need to trust God that our past is forgiven or we will be weighed down with guilt, which should be taken away.
We need to forgive others, or God will not forgive our sins.
We need to forget (emotionally) our failures or they will block our vision of His promises, purposes and power.
We need to separate ourselves from activities, associations, attitudes that are toxic and broken.

By faith, we need to forget (turn from, ignore, discount, reject) that which is behind.
Philippians 3:13
(13) Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind...

In the pursuit of the first resurrection we must forget what lies behind and reach for that which is ahead. But we cannot reach, by faith, for what God has for us if we don't turn loose of that, from which God wants us to be delivered.

(The Lord willing, I plan on addressing the rest of this verse at a later time.)

As always in every area of Christian living, forgetting the past is not simply a human action, it is a spiritual action derived from a right relationship with Jesus. We can do the right things but fail to do them in the right way. We must forget living by our own power and live in the newness of life that comes from surrender to Jesus.