Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)
I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)
Having thought
about what has gone before and remembered things for our future reference, there comes the point at which one needs to escape from the past and move forward. It’s
easy to dwell in the past, to get bogged down in failures and bad habits. We
make them the cause or excuse for our failure instead of part of the motivation
for our victory. Instead of turning out backs on them and walking toward
Christ, we drag them along as if they are a part of us – and they are because
we let them be.
For changes
in our lives in the coming year, we need to begin by changing the way we think –
which requires effectively forgetting what we’ve thought in favor of the new
thing. We may even need to be aggressive and disagree with ourselves or others about this change. If, for example, we believe that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, we
may need to tell ourselves or others to shut up when they say, “You can’t do it.”
But I suspect that
this is where we most need to work. We are too easily convinced of two things:
1) That God is trying to keep something good from us, and 2) That we can’t be
the person we know we should be or do the things we know we should do. (Keep
the difference between “should” and “want to be” in mind.) If we are going to
follow Christ, these bad beliefs must go.
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