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| “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the oal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” |
| —Philippians 3:13-14 |
Most of us have painful memories with which we have to deal. Some of these memories come from incidents in our lives that we caused because of our own foolishness, or selfishness, or sinfulness. Other memories that hurt us come from the way someone else treated us, or the way the chapters of our lives unfolded in a way that we did not, or could not, anticipate.
Whatever the case, we are plagued by these unpleasant memories, even filled with guilt or remorse about the things we did, or sorrow at the things that were done to us. The question: how do we move forward and put these memories in their proper place?
The Apostle Paul, based on the very painful experiences of his own life, offers us his advice on this matter, as recorded in Philippians 3:13-14:
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
You will remember that before God met Paul on the road to Damascus, he was Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, zealous for the Jewish Law, unbending in his devotion to the Pharisees, of which he was one. His political allegiance trumped everything in his life. A citizen of Rome—a very unusual thing for a Jew—he had given himself fully to making the lives of these new “Christ’s-ones” as miserable as he could.
But, God met him, as Saul traveled to persecute yet another group of Christians. On that lonely stretch of road, Saul became Paul. God gave him a new heart and a new name. Paul’s devotion was transformed. Paul now became as zealous for Christ and His Kingdom as he had formerly been when he persecuted those who worshipped this new King.
Yet Paul, no doubt, felt a lot of guilt for how he had formerly behaved. So, Paul’s words of wisdom, expressed in this letter to the Philippians, should carry a great deal of weight with us. And, as we begin a new day, we can appropriate this same attitude.
Let’s start this day by forgetting what lies in the past and by pressing on toward the goal that God has set before us. If we do so, we will certainly be much better off.
