Forgetting What's Behind

The New Year is well under way! The local gyms memberships are at their highest and many people are very sincere with their New Year’s resolutions. The hard truth is that many have already given up and some are just days away. It’s actually only a few who finish their goals.

Why is that?

There are tons of reasons, but many are because they placed unrealistic expectations or unreachable goals. At least in the way they go about it.

“I want to get in shape,” they say. So they hit the gym with all the vigor and gusto they can, but they do too much and they are too sore to go back.

Sometimes the goals are too far away and it is too difficult to focus on the end. So, someone gives up by focusing on the short term enjoyments.

Sometimes it simply that they are holding on to past successes as enough…Okay this one hits home. Let’s talk physical goals. In 2013-14 I hit some major goals in my life. I lost a lot of weight and was almost back down to my high school weight. I ran my 1^st and 2^nd half marathons. I had it going on.

Problem, in 2015-16 I focused on the past good things I did. All the hard work I did for the previous two years was wasted on laziness.

So this year I set my goals again. I laid out a plan to get there. I paid for the Akron Half Marathon. I set a 38 week schedule to get back into the gym and slowly build my running legs again. I set short and long term goals. I plan on running a 5K in April, a 10K in June and a half in September. I will probably do some other things too.

On top of that, I got some accountability. I invited several friends to join my efforts…and they said YES!! This is how I was successful in the past, and this is how I will be successful this year.

Forgetting What’s Behind

This is what the Apostle Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:12-16. The focus he needed to have to continue to grow spiritually was to forget what was behind him and continue to press on toward his goal.

Okay, Paul had a lot of good stuff in his past. He already recounted his testimony in the previous verses. He did a lot of missions trips. He led a lot of people to the Lord. He wrote 2/3rds of the New Testament.

And you know what? He said he needed to forget those things.

Often times we talk about forgetting things, as in the bad things we have done. “Your past does not have to define your future,” is one of my favorite quotes. And there is truth to that. But in Christ, we can forget our past because He paid for them.

What Paul is talking about here is spiritual growth. Don’t focus on the good things you’ve done for God and think you have arrived. There is no arriving. We are to press on, to fix our eyes on the next goal.

Pressing Toward the Upward Call

Paul’s goal was the mission of Jesus Christ and His return (see verses 14 and 20-21).

If I put this in my own terms, Paul wanted to prepare himself for the return of Christ in the same way a man gets all serious about his diet and exercise before the Wedding day.

Paul was so excited to see Jesus that he was of single focus and threw off every distraction.

What is your spiritual focus? What motivates you to keep pressing on? What are your short term and long term goals?