"

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13, 14)

It’s scary to look back on our failures. Before Jesus, we had to look back. It was the age of backward looking. The law required strict record keeping of slips and gains. Everything depended on my ability to climb God’s impossibly holy mountain. I was nervous, and grew sick from my guilt. It’s a dismal existence when a flawed human is forced to live looking back on his mistakes.

Jesus paid a dear price to keep us from the fright of looking back. How blessed I am to live in the age of looking forward. Because of the substitution on the cross, the failures of my past are nonexistent. They have been erased from the annals of time, forever removed from God’s books. Whatever mistakes I make between now and heaven will also crumble into oblivion the instant the present becomes the past.

I look down the mountain, and there is nothing but a few bright successes, and many blank voids where my sins used to be. It’s a rather boring view. Up ahead–now that’s a wondrous landscape. The way is steep, but in the treacherous places, there are colorful future successes. The top is crowned with yellow-white beams from the paradise wherein my Favorite dwells.

Satan wants us to look back until we sit down and stop climbing from discouragement. I won’t fall for it. For me, from here on out, there is only forward.

Prayer: King Jesus, keep me looking forward to you.