Put the Past Behind, But Don't Forget It

Pumba: "You've gotta put your behind in the past."
Timon: "No, no Pumba, its: You've gotta put your past behind ya!"

As I concluded my devotions this morning I read from My Utmost For His Highest. What Chambers said really resonated with me:

"At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present."

As believers who are justified by the blood of Christ, we are forgiven. Past, present, and future sins are lifted from our account and placed on Jesus at the cross 2000 years ago. At the same time, His righteousness is now a credit to our account. When the end comes and the work of salvation has reached completion, God will look on us and see Christ's perfection rather than our mishaps. All is forgiven. From the tone I took with my mother a few weeks ago to the worst of atrocities committed by the man on death row who has found new life in Christ, all these things fall on Jesus' shoulders at Calvary.

Yet we continue to remember the past. Sometimes it haunts our thoughts and seems to point a condemning finger. Sometimes it keeps us awake at night wondering what could have been. Sometimes we yearn for another chance to go back and take the road less traveled. As a forgiven people, the past is behind, but it still has its place. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church these words: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." (II Corinthians 1:3-4)

Christ forgives us, but does not wipe our memory. Think back to your darkest moment, the point you most wish you could forget. Was there not someone there that brought you through? Was there not a portion of Scripture that you ran to in order to find comfort from God? Was not some form of comfort sent to give you peace? I think back to dark periods of my life and find that the comfort I received often came through someone who had gone through the same or a similar ordeal.

I have suffered, but been comforted with comfort sent by God so that one day I may be that comfort sent by God to one who is suffering. This is why we can never fully forget the pain of our sin. We can never fully forget the anguish of sin and the throbbing of the heart at its remembrance. If sin, whether yours or that of another, has caused you to suffer, you now have a responsibility and a ministry to others. This is the way God works the good for believers when sin and its consequences cause suffering.

Chambers continues:

"Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return... Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the irreparable past in His hands, and step out into the irresistible future with Him."