I am writing this contemplation to encourage myself —since this remains one of my biggest challenges. I am increasingly aware that if I am to experience the righteousness, peace and joy of kingdom living, I can no longer live in either the past or the future. It would startle us to know how much of our time, energy and thought life is spent on regretting the past (what we have done or what someone has done to us) and worrying about the future. Even the scientific world is acknowledging that almost all illnesses (both mental and physical) are stress related. And stress is nothing more than emotional tension caused by concern about the past or future.
Most people who are in therapy are there because they cannot (or will not) let go of the past. They view themselves as victims of the people and events in their past, or they are laboring under guilt and condemnation for what they have done in the past. They have not yet heard Paul’s words:
Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
These are words from a man who actually had people killed because they were Christians, but a man who could say
2Corinthians 7:1-2 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Receive us; we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man.
The promises
Paul is talking about are recorded in the previous few verses:
2Corinthians 6:16-18 … ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. … I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Paul knew with certainty that his old man,
that body of sin
had been crucified with Christ and that Christ was living His life through Paul (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20).
But,
you say, Paul didn’t do those awful things after he became a Christian. I did something yesterday that I regret.
Did you do anything worse than Peter, worse than denying the Christ three times? (Matthew 26:34) I would go so far as to say that everything we do that we regret is denying the Christ
—not recognizing that we have inside us the Christ who will express Himself through us if we just let
Him, rather than acting out of our humanity, or what the Scriptures call the flesh.
Even if we don’t let
Him walk and talk in us, He just says to us, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more
(John 8:11) and Jackie, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep
(John 21:17).
Paul could have been angry (as so many of us are) about his orthodox upbringing which was responsible for his belief that he was serving God while arresting those who didn’t accept his concept of God. On the contrary, as we read in Romans 9 particularly, he wanted more than anything for his fellow Jews to know the only true God
that Jesus prayed we would all know (John 17:3).
The point being made here is that we cannot afford to harbor any resentments or guilt concerning the past or fears concerning the future.
We must live in the NOW with our minds stayed
on the Christ within (Isaiah 26:3), always listening for His voice, telling us, This is the way; walk ye in it
(Isaiah 30:21). For, as Paul said, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation
(2Corinthians 6:2).