Shalom,
Today I want to share again from Kenneth and Gloria Copeland's "From Faith To Faith" devotional. This has been another favorite over the years! ALWAYS a good teaching fromthe Word of God and ALWAYS timely!
Leave the
Past Behind
...But this
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before. Philippians 3:13
Failures and
disappointments. Aches and pains from the past that just won’t seem to go away.
Most of us know what it’s like to suffer from them but too few of us know just
what to do about them. So we limp along, hoping somehow they’ll magically stop
hurting.
But it never
happens that way. In fact, the passing of time often leaves us in worse
condition—not better. Because, instead of putting those painful failures behind
us, we often dwell on them until they become more real to us than the promises
of God. We focus on them until we become bogged down in depression, frozen in
our tracks by the fear that if we go on, we’ll only fail again.
I used to
get caught in that trap a lot. Then one day when I was right in the middle of a
bout with depression, the Lord spoke up inside me and said:
Kenneth, your
problem is you’re forming your thoughts off the past instead of the future.
Don’t do that! Unbelief looks at the past and says, “See, it can’t be done.”
But faith looks at the future and says, “It can be done, and according to the
promises of God, it is done!” Then putting past failures behind it forever,
faith steps out and acts like the victory’s already been won.
If
depression has driven you into a spiritual nose dive, break out of it by
getting your eyes off the past and onto your future—a future that’s been
guaranteed by Christ Jesus through the great and precious promises in His Word.
Forget about
those failures in the past! That’s what God has done (Hebrews 8:12). And if He
doesn’t remember them any more, why should you?
The Bible
says God’s mercies are new every morning. So if you’ll take God at His Word,
you can wake up every morning to a brand-new world. You can live life totally
unhindered by the past.
So, do it!
Replace thoughts of yesterday’s mistakes with scriptural promises about your
future. As you do that, hope will start taking the place of depression. The
spiritual aches and pains that have crippled you for so long will quickly
disappear. Instead of looking behind you and saying, “I can’t,” you’ll begin to
look ahead and say, “I can do all things through Christ which
strengthens me!”
AMEN!!! REFUSE to give the enemy one more second of your time! Instead, invest in YOU by feeding on the WORD of GOD and become STRONG with HIS STRENGTH! Here is one of my new favorite songs called "Miracle Child" by Brandon Lake. It is all about who WE are now that WE are IN JESUS!
Shalom in Him!