Book 4 of Musings Pressing Toward the Future

We can choose to dream of the past, or of the future.

Considering the pit from which we are being dug, and the glory toward which the righteous are moving, it is more profitable to forget the things that are past and to dream of the future.

Should we remember the past or remember the future? I think we should hold the future before us.

It is so easy, as one grows older, to dream of the past as though it somehow was better than the present. Nostalgia sets in. We become sentimental.

The truth is, we were miserable then just as we are miserable now. Somehow time screens out the pressures and dreads that we were experiencing then-even as children. Perhaps this is not the case with you, but it think it is with most of us.

Life in this world is not easy for anyone, Christian or not. It is the valley of the shadow of death.

Do you recall how the Israelites forgot all about the hardships in Egypt and wished they were back with the leeks and garlic? What a delusion!

The Apostle Paul said he was forgetting the things of yesterday and straining toward that which is ahead. Perhaps he was thinking of the following verse:

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house. (Psalms 45:10)

Whether Paul was remembering this verse, or just determined he was going to keep on moving forward, I don't know. But I do believe the spiritual person is always pushing forward in Christ.

To be nostalgic, sentimental about the past, is to live in a lie. It is typical adamic behavior.

We need to fix our eyes on the future. The purpose of the events of the past was to bring us to where we are now-nothing more than this. Salvation is always "today." I truly believe the Presence of the Lord, and the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, are more in evidence than they ever have been-at least in my fifty-eight years as a Christian.

Revival is here now. Jesus is standing at the door of our heart, desiring to come in and feed us with resurrection life. Resurrection life is in His body and blood.

Many who are last shall be first. If I am correct, unprecedented opportunities are here now. But we have to forget the "good old days" and lay hold on that which now is available. He has kept the best wine until how.

Don't waste your time looking back. Press forward, because there are thrones of glory waiting to be occupied by those who care enough to fight for them.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:13-14)