Quit Looking in the Rearview Mirror
MC Midweek Jan. 18, 2023
by Pastor Cliff Myers
On New Year’s Day, I spoke on “Forgetting Your Past and Focusing on your Future.” Your past need not be your future; God has a bright future in store for you if you will accept it and believe it.
My favorite verse in God’s Word is Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV): "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Take His plans and make them your plans. You can’t do that if you are always looking to your past. His plans for you are in His promises, which come alive when you seek Him. He can give you the directions in His word on how to get there. Jesus is the way, the road to blessing and salvation. Seek Him and hear from Him; this is the way of faith, and faith is the way of the victor. I John 5:4 (NIV) states, “for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
In the folk song, Judy Blue Eyes, Crosby Stills Nash & Young sing “Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.” One cannot be both a victim and a victor at the same time. Choose to be one or the other. Religion, most of the time, tries to be both and ends up being neither. Guilt and a low spiritual self-esteem will keep you in the prison-house of victimhood. It will keep you in the past of yourself instead of the future of Him. Being ‘In Him’ is being in His life and in His future.
Your past is not His future for you. You are valuable in His eyes, so treat yourself as valuable in your own eyes. This is not always easy. Walking by faith is not walking by sight, or walking by feelings, and it sure is not walking in the past. Treating yourself as valuable is not pride but true humility before God. To do anything less is disobedience to the God Who has great plans for you and has promised great things for you. Walk with Him in the light of His love and mercy.
Remember, your past is past and He has your future. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was really like this? Well, it can be if you walk in the light as He is in the light and allow His blood to cleanse you from all sin and from all the left-over stuff of the past. God has created a great separator between the past and the future; it is called Today. Every day can be a new day of opportunity in the plan and future God has for us. Our effort is to live in our ‘today’ and trust Him for a great tomorrow.
