Don't Let Your Past Hold You Back, Focus On Your Future, Rejoice and Repent

Oswald Chambers “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.[…] Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.”  

The remembering of our past failures (sins) has two sides.  On the one hand, they remind us that we have a sin nature and that nature has been a powerfully harmful influence in our lives.  We have proven the truth of the Word … all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and there is none righteous (Romans 3:10).  Our past failures remind us that we do not deserve God’s favor.  But on the other hand, we also know that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”  (Romans 5:8).  We know that we have been redeemed.  (Galatians 3:13) “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (from the judgement of God) by becoming a curse for us”.  That does not mean ours sins are somehow, “OK”, but it does mean that we are forgiven.  It does mean that we have hope.  It does mean that we have help.  It does mean that we have a certain future.  Don’t let your past hold you back.  You are a child of the King.  Focus on your future, rejoice and repent!  CHARLEY