Paul looked at his heritage, the things he trusted in and counted it all “dung.”
PAST FAILURES;
Don’t allow the past to lead you into bondage. “Forgetting” {Phil 3:13}is in the present tense, and means this was his habit of continually forgetting. This was his direction, not perfection but a new direction of living. “Forgetting,” is also in the middle – voice “which means that the “runner” initiates & participates in benefits thereof.” Paul is saying, “Don’t lose focus , dont look back and be influenced in your present by the past!” For a runner to turn and look sideways or backwards, will cause them to lose focus! “Look away to Jesus…” Learn from the past but dont dwell there, press on to Know Him! It is a command to be obeyed, a choice to be made. An attitude to be maintained. Focus ahead, looking to Jesus! Trust His Word.
FUTURE FEARS;
But if the evil one cannot tempt you to embrace past failures he injects a thought of FUTURE FEARS... YOU DO NOT HAVE TO THINK ON THESE BUT… WHEN YOU CHOSE TO… Be sure ANXIETY{Luke 12} and DISCOURAGEMENT -{ Neh 6:9} and the DESIRE TO QUIT{Neh 6:9} is what will overwhelm and overtake your thought life influencing you emotionally, and you end up choosing to make choices based on how you “think” which are not in align with John 17:17 and Phil 4:8 and leads to a wrong”PRACTICE” of thinking and a false walking in error! Why? You chose to accept the initial seed of a lie! Living in condemnation of your past failures, at times unable to go on you feel the guilt, shame of sin, not only before In Christ but since you have come to Him. True, you and I have sinned since we have come to Him, sometimes we have under pressure and failing to trust Him have reverted back to the “old” ways of doing things and as time has gone on we realize the sin, the pain caused to Him and perhaps to others. it eats away at us as the evil one shoots his poisonous darts and accusations, mocking us, berating us, conjuring up before us again and again the sin, the shame, the total waste of our lives, and so his poisonous darts to your mind foes. Sound familiar?
The “POISONOUS RESIDUE”…
that remains of condemnation; Like a poison odorless gas at times it leaks into the atmosphere of your faith and seeking and often as you choose to yield turning you from focus on the Lovely all sufficient salvation of the LORD Jesus for you. It may be a “thought” that briefly like a “shooting star” in the heavens cross’s your mind, about a past sin before you knew the LORD, or often it is one that has happened SINCE you knew the LORD. And you give it access, you give it attention, you give it mastery over you as somehow you believe you need to take a “beaten” for it, due to the sin, shame you carry, and this in itself is a great affront to the work of Christ on the cross, as if to say, His Work of forgiveness and satisfying God’s demands for all your sin is not sufficient. Those sins, before you were “in Christ,”and those since you repented and placed your trust in Him, also not sufficient. In your dealing of the matter it is “Christ Plus” Christ work PLUS your self works to try and appease God, or to sit down in despair, your head low, the grief’s of what you have done at times taking you to a dark, disheartening, joy sapping places and a sort of “penance” ritual you go to when the enemy brings back not a glorious shooting star, that crosses the sky and produces wonder, like a verse of Hope from His Word,a reminder of His Blood for all your sins His love that can never be severed from you, but as Paul mentions a “fiery dart” seeking to injure you. Injure your faith. Injure your thought life so as to tempt to influence your emotions and choices you make. Injure you into inaction, ungratefulness and looking but not to Jesus. Leading and leaving you with yourself, the accuser of the brethren and the sense of hopelessness, worthlessness all which lack one element, The TRUTH about God and who and what He says you are “IN CHRIST!” You are looking at life apart from Him! Subtle, poisonous and spiritual paralyzing, only if you choose to!
BUILDING A FALSE RELIGION { MIND SET }AS A CHRISTIAN!!!
The enemy hates GOD and hates you. It is spiritual warfare. A Thought comes of past sin, and you embrace it, cuddle it, dwell on it and believe you should be beaten over it and even do some of the beaten of yourself down in a perverse way failing to realize by doing so you are insulting the work of the LORD Jesus Christ on His Cross, and Resurrection! You are making a false religion of what one must do, when conscious of sins committed, if someone was to follow your actions they would not be lead and left with Jesus but with themselves and a demonic deception, which would lead and leave to despair and ignore the glorious resurrected all sufficient Christ! Do you see that? You have bought a lie! You have believed on it. How do you know? Look at how you are acting as a result of THINKING wrong and a result of TRUSTING yourself and not the LORD! It is a spiritual warfare you are in, and the battle is for your mind to attack your trust in Him who is alone trustworthy!
The evil one cannot have your soul for it is “kept by the power of God, a salvation reserved in Heaven for you.”{1 Peter 1:5-7}. So he seeks to tempt you to relate all things to yourself and lean to your own understanding, and look at yourself outside of Christ and not for who you truly are “In Christ” and your eternal position in Him. The thought comes recognize it, examine it. Is this true of God and who I am In CHRIST? Replace it with who He is and who you are. But what if I sinned? Welcome to the club! “BUT GOD…”He has provided also that if we confess our sins HE is faithful and Just to forgive and cleans… how many? “ALL” our iniquities-{1 John 1:7-9} including the sin the evil one is trying to seek to tempt you to accept now, and bury you with guilt, despair, to live as though the work of Christ on your behalf has no relevance to what you are going through now! It is the temptation to displace Christ by replacing Him as insufficient to meet you and instead get all caught up in your sin, failures. If you are a golf player and you hit a shot into the sand, it should not take you long to get a club and hit out of there. So in the spiritual realm, you sin, confess it and ten seconds later you are back on the course of walking with Him, grateful for His mercy and blood applied to you! Don’t sit down in the bunker, or pit of the sand trap, not only would it look stupid it is no benefit since the object of the game is to get to the next hole. Get up, thank Him for the blood, dont go by your feelings instead walk by faith {2 Cor 5:7}, in a faithful Savior who is Resurrected Lord, whose authority in the spiritual realm is ultimate! As well as all other realms!
HOPE FOR FAILURES;
Have you read Hebrews 11- known as the “Hall of Faith.” To read it you find men and women whom God “approved” them for their faith. But not their perfection! This is important! Because often we want to read it as though they were all flawless, perfect, for only The God Man- Jesus Christ can hold that honor! But these people had faith in Him, at times they sinned, failed miserably, repeatedly,”But God…” sees their faith in Him, in the case of Abraham from Genesis chapter twelve to twenty two where he said through great faith, he and his son would go and worship the LORD offering a sacrifice and would return. Indeed there was no sacrifice, he was prepared to offer his only son whom he loved and yet elsewhere we read he had come to the place he believed God could raise him from the dead. God supplied a sacrifice and in those twelve chapters we see the working of God calling a man and making him a man of faith, there were denials along the way, failures yet God did not give up on him, as he does not give up on you or me.
Do you think your sin, failure has come as a surprise to Him who chose you before the foundation of the world to fellowship with His Son? – {Read Eph 1:4; 1 Cor 1:9}.
Do you fail to remember the LORD knew Peter would fail, deny Him, and yet told him when he had turned to “strengthen” the brethren. Upon His resurrection He told the women to go tell Peter He was alive. Have you forgot how the LORD made breakfast on the beech unknown to the disciples who were fishing that He was there and when He ahd called them and how He asked Peter three times “do you love Me?” Twice He uses the word which speaks of sacrificial supreme love, and when Peter answers each time with the word used for “affection” Jesus finally asked him if indeed he did have an affection for Him. Peter responded with Lord You know, and so He did and He restored him and gave him responsibility… and did not discard him! When we see the day of Pentecost, it is Peter in boldness proclaiming Christ. peter is known as the apostle of Hope, in 2 Peter 1 three times he says “I write to remind you of these things” The LORD used Peter to write two books in the new Testament, and in Galatians we see him fail again, sin and to such an extent even Barnabas was led astray by his “hypocrisy” and all as a result of fearing men, this time. Failed but not discarded!
Thirty years after his conversion it was Paul who wrote, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” -{Phil 3:13-14}.
Forgetting- don’t allow the past to hold you in bondage
PRESS ON – with purpose
Focus Change – look to Him, look ahaead, thankful for His taking care of all your past, present, and future sins
Keep pressing on!!!
Too often we carry over false concepts, old ways of thinking, and we need to obey “… be transformed by the RENEWING of your MIND….”-{Rom 12:2}. We have to choose to learn to THINK Through the lens of truth and PRACTICE it “Whatever is true… let your mind dwell on these things… PRACTICE these things”-{Phil 4:8-9}
ARE YOU BUILDING A FALSE RELIGION { MIND SET }AS A CHRISTIAN? OR are you living Out THE Christian Life and all that is true of Him and you “IN CHRIST!”
QUESTIONS
THINK- IS THIS TRUE OF GOD AND WHO HE SAYS I AM “IN CHRIST?”
IF NOT
- RECOGNIZE THE LIE
- REPLACE IT WITH TRUTH
- REPLAY, RE-TALK IT TO YOURSELF-{Phil 4:8}
- PRACTICE IT- DO IT BY FAITH -{Phil 4:9}
- TRUST HIM-{ John 14:1}
- THANK HIM- { 1 Thess 5:18}