For most of us, the past holds both good and bad memories. But it’s those bad memories that do all the damage to our present lives.

The constant drumbeat of those “woulda, coulda, shouldas” will haunt us to our graves if we let them. It’s like digging up dead cats that were buried years ago, wondering how the deceased little critters are getting along after all this time.

Yuck! Stop digging. What’s done is done and can’t be changed. Bury the negative stuff at the foot of the cross and leave it there.

Jesus died on the cross to free us from our spiritual “histories” inherited from Adam. But He didn’t stop there. He rose from the dead and ascended back to Heaven to give us a future and a hope that is built, not upon what we have done, but upon what Christ (our “Last Adam”) has done for us.

As written in 1 Corinthians 15:44-46, “The first man, Adam, became a living person. The last Adam was a life-giving spirit.”

It is spiritually perilous for Christians to ruminate backward in time because the Devil is the one bringing the accusations against you, and he won’t stop until your faith is in tatters, as noted in Revelation 12:9-11:

“And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world … Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God, day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”

The Devil is a defeated foe, yet he soldiers on, attempting to destroy the testimony of the saints of God — If he can. In Philippians 3:13-14, the Apostle Paul felt so strongly about burying the past that he made it his first priority:

“Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

That “holy forgetfulness” (above) is only a start. It must be coupled with an active “reaching forward” to the Person and work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

The Past Is Dead

Step 1: In Paul’s case, he “forgot what lies behind.” His past was a lot worse than yours or mine.

He participated in the brutal death by stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. He hunted Christians thinking he was doing God a service.

He wasted a large part of his life trying fruitlessly to attain perfection through his endless, exhausting works of the Law. He was intensely proud of being a topflight Israelite religionist and Pharisee.

The Future Is Christ’s

Step 2: But then Paul “reached forward to what lay ahead. Not what lay ahead on Paul’s personal path, but the path set out by the resurrected Christ for him — a path that was issued day-by-day through the Holy Spirit — never years ahead. Paul had to learn to live in “day-tight compartments,” surrendering control to Jesus in the process. 

From now on, Paul would live wholly dependent on God’s sovereign will. He “pressed on,” refusing to fling himself down on the cushy couch of self-pity and ruminate over his failures and losses.

He disciplined himself to live a goal-oriented life centered upon a spiritual prize, not of self-expression/achievement, but one of becoming a living expression of his Savior, Christ Jesus who once said, in Matthew 6:26-34:

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things (temporal needs) will be provided to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

How About You?

Still ruminating about your past failures? It will sap the life right out of you. Don’t let the Devil keep rubbing your nose in it.

One word of caution: Don’t just focus on forgetting something and stopping there. The resulting void must be filled with something else.

Nature abhors a vacuum. For example, the way to stop thinking of pink elephants is NOT to stop thinking about pink elephants, but to think of something completely different. One crowds out the other.

Do the same with bad memories. Focus on crowding them out with thoughts of what you have in Christ right now.

“Press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”