So often we get caught in looking backwards and yet what has the past got to hold for us? We might think that there were better days then, but that is to rend the future hopeless as we are not looking forward to God's future that He has for us.
Look what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back, her eyes where blind with the rottenness of Sodom and Gomorrah - she turned into a pillar of salt. So looking back is not a helpful nor a hopeful act especially when we look back at a life of dis ease.
Proverbs 4:25 Let you eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.
Jesus is very firm on this point - Luke 9:62 Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God
Our past is exactly that our past, not our present nor our future.
Our past sins are exactly that, past sins, and if we believe that Jesus took upon himself our sins, past, present and future we must believe that. When we confess our sins today that is it for today. Forgiven, forgotten, forging forward to Freedom. Therefore we can look forward in hope, in God's hope.
If we keep looking back we are tied to our past and not to the glorious future that God has for us.
We need to own our past, forgive our past and proclaim freedom on our lives.
This is what Paul spoke about in Philippians 3:12 “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. 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. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
If we do not own, forgive and proclaim freedom on our lives then we will become prisoners of the lies of the past and this will lead to hopelessness and helplessness. God empowers us through his forgiveness, and we in turn need to honour His sacrifice, Jesus, and rise with Him to claim our prize - Freedom. We must look forward towards God and His Kingdom not backwards to the pain and misery of our past. These ties must be cut, so that God's plan for us can be revealed and accomplished.
If we are not free to be hopeful heirs of God then we may as well be turned to salt, like Lot's wife, as our life will not be any more fruitful than hers. I am sure many of you know christian's who are hindered by their past and have lived a sad life of regret, bitterness, anger and joylessness. This is the result of salt corroding their being. But all that can change if a person let's go of their past and allow's God Love to heal them and give them His Hope.
God bless, Margaret
