Last week we talked about getting back on track and what we needed to do in order to accomplish that. To get back on track we needed to;
1. Look back and see where we got off track, or veered off course.
2. Alter our course appropriately
3. Commit to moving forward by strengthening our walk with Christ
So what do we do after we look back and right our course? We get back on track & move forward.
Let’s look at our text today Philippians 3: 12-14.
The first thing we need to do when we begin to move forward is to forget about it, and by it I mean anything that may hinder or hold you back. We must realize that we aren’t at our final destination, but we are headed in the right direction and once we get back on track we need to forget all that is behind us.
I don’t know since I wasn’t there but I wonder if anyone thought “ Well of course you would want to forget everything Paul you held everyone’s coats while they stoned Stephen , you went around torturing and persecuting folks like us just for fun, you were so bad your name was evened changed.”
Here’s the deal, all of us have done things, said things, and thought about things that we aren’t so proud of. We have got to let that stuff go, we have got to forget about it, realizing that we have been forgiven for our sins and transgressions and move forward. Anything in our past that holds us back and tangles us up we have got to let it go. Brothers and sisters we cannot let our past define who we are today.
The enemy will use doubts about our past put us in a stranglehold and it will bind us down, hold us back, trip us up and keep us from enjoying the promise of living life and living it abundantly.
The devil will get in your head and say, hey remember when you used to run the bars all night and get so lit you don’t even remember what happened - All you gotta do is say is maybe I did, but today It aint me
What about all that language you used to use even taking the Lords name in vain. – Hey it aint me
Or what about you not going to church and putting God first because you were so caught up in doing stuff and didn’t have time for God. It aint me!
What about greed, spite, envy…
Get behind me Satan that’s behind me and I’m forgetting it cause it aint me. I’m a new creature, I’ve been forgiven, my debts have been paid and no matter what I used to be today that aint Me.!!!!
Friends once we right our course we need to quit looking in the rear view Mirror and start looking through the windshield. We must forget what’s behind and begin living into today. Our lives should be about the here and now, not yesterday, and not tomorrow but today. Certainly we should be looking forward to what’s in store but we certainly shouldn’t be living there. If you’re living with one foot in the past and the other in the future you’re missing the best part of life.
Scripture tells us in James 4:13-14 (NKJV)
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away...
Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
So we must live each day to its fullest, forgetting what’s behind, looking ahead & living in the here & now.
Our goal each day should be to;
? Know Christ more
? Be more like Christ
? Be all that God would have us be
