We all have a \u2018past\u2019. It\u2019s filled with hurts others have done to us, mistakes that got us into trouble, and things we\u2019re so ashamed of we wouldn\u2019t dare talk openly about them. What to do? There are only two things you can do with your past: focus<\/i> on it, or forget<\/i> it and move on. If you need forgiveness, ask God for it, receive it by faith, learn from your mistakes, and try to do better next time. <\/p>\n
Paul wrote: \u2018One thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.\u2019<\/i> (Philippians\u00a03:13\u201314\u00a0AMPC<\/sup>) Note the words \u2018my one aspiration\u2019.<\/i> Before Paul met Christ, he routinely imprisoned Christians and shut down churches. And what\u2019s more, he was so keen on continuing that he applied for the job of persecuting them in a foreign country! Maybe that\u2019ll make you feel a little better about your<\/i> past. <\/p>\n Now, however, Paul had only one aspiration: \u2018straining forward to what lies ahead\u2019.<\/i> When you fail by sinning, you compound your failure by obsessing over it and wallowing in guilt. Why? Because God has provided forgiveness for you! So whether you sinned twenty years or twenty minutes ago, there\u2019s nothing you can do about it except to ask God for forgiveness, receive it, put it behind you, and move on. You must let go of yesterday\u2019s mistakes in order to grasp today\u2019s blessings. When you learn to do that, you will enjoy life the way God intended. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We all have a \u2018past\u2019. It\u2019s filled with hurts others have done to us, mistakes that got us into trouble, and things we\u2019re so ashamed of we wouldn\u2019t dare talk openly about them. What to do? There are only two things you can do with your past: focus on it, or forget it and move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}