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. Philippians 3:13, 14.
Thank You dear God for another day of life and another opportunity to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we be willing to allow You to accomplish this in us. This is our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As we continue our journey through these first hours of the year 2017, we walk with great caution, not knowing what awaits us around the corner. We know to a great extent what we would like to accomplish. What we do not know is what hurdles we will have to deal with to get where we want to go.
Yesterday we added another element to our plan for starting over. Forgetting. Forgetting the guilt of the past, and accepting the forgiveness and cleansing offered us by Christ. Today we will continue to forget. But this time it will be our gains, not our guilt that we will be dealing with.
Perhaps some of you may ask: Is it not a good thing to ponder the positive? And certainly something we consider a “gain” must be positive. Well that question is quite valid and could merit a dual response: yes and no.
Perhaps most of you have heard the phrase “Rest on one’s laurels.” When the phrase was first coined it was used to refer to a positive action. Someone standing under, or being recognized for his or her distinguished accomplishments of the past. In latter years, it has lost much of the luster and has come to refer to a state of non-productivity, or even laziness, believing that one’s accomplishments of the past relieves one from any further action.
I believe that if we are advised to forget our gains of the past it would be for us not to become so satisfied with the spiritual growth that we have achieved that we no longer aspire to continue growing in the Lord and we become spiritually lazy. That being the case I consider it very good advice to forget the gains of the past and be continually “reaching forward to those things which are ahead[.]
This will constitute our study for tomorrow.