WHEN FORGETTING IS A GOOD THING
PHILIPPIANS 3:12-15 NKJV
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
This is about having a mature mindset, not about having a so-called senior moment.
And while I am on the subject of senior moments, losing memory is not nearly as much of an aging problem as has been supposed. People forget things in their 20's. But I digress.
Paul is talking about not holding onto the past. His focus was to lay hold of the higher way of life that Jesus has made available to us.
He acknowledges that he is not perfect. He still has room to grow. And that is what he is pressing toward.
Because Paul is moving forward, he is not caught up with the things of his past. And Paul could very easily be dominated by his past life.
On one hand, Paul was an up and coming leader of the Jewish people. He was highly regarded in the religious circles of the Pharisees. So Paul had a great amount of religious heritage. But as he states earlier in chapter three, he put no confidence in his flesh. What he, at one time, considered an important item on his resume, he counted loss for Christ.
So Paul forgot his fleshly heritage in the sense that he put no confidence in being Jewish.
And Paul forgot the other side of his past. That he did damage to the Body of Christ. He was a major persecutor of the early church. He consented to people being put in prison and even killed for being believers in Jesus. Things of that sort could really cause trouble. Holding onto that part of his past could have really held Paul back. But he faced forward. He was pressing for the goal of all that God had called him to.
APPLICATION:
One of the best things we can do with our past is forget it and move on. Move on from what we were from a natural standpoint. And move on from the mistakes and failures of the past.
The past can not help us now. What we are called to in Christ is far better than anything our past had to offer. And His calling on our lives is not a function of our past, good or bad.
We can take the same approach that Paul took. Our future in God through Christ looks so much better than anything in our past. So forget about it.
PRAYER:
Lord thank You that my past is not being held against me. Nor does my future depend on my past. I am pressing forward. I want to be all You have called me to be.