The longer I live, the more I begin to see the frailty of human heart, my heart. Lately one of the areas where I see this more clearly is our penchant to look back. We look back at failures, successes, situations and our old life. We look back not necessarily to learn from them, but to still live in them. The problem with that is that we are called to move forward, to move on in Christ. Yes, we learn from the past, but we are not to live there.
The Wilderness Generation
(WG) had so much unbelief in God's character and Word (about the promised land)
that they wanted to go back to Egypt, to all that they had known before:
Numbers 14:4 And
they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to
Egypt.”
Looking backward to the
old way of life before Christ - is not real life, but a pretend one that is no
longer real, but a mirage of somewhere we once lived. Unbelief looks back
at the Old Life with a complaining and blaming heart. Unbelief is
grounded solely in man ways.
I am reminded of the how
the life of faith should go from Paul:
Philippians 3:12 Not
that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press
on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one
thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies
ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize
of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
The life of faith moves forward
embracing the character and Word of God. The life of faith moves on
toward Christ because Christ has made us His own. The life of faith moves
forward with lessons learned from the past, but never wanting the old life,
just more and more of Jesus.
Let's move forward.
