It is a season of moving forward and not looking back!! Are you a prisoner of your past, whether good or bad? Are you fighting past battles, instead of head-on battles? We should be rejoicing over past battles that we have victory in, instead of allowing them to still keep us down. You can’t embrace rest and still keep Egypt. You can’t embrace Moses and keep Pharaoh.
The enemy uses our past to keep us from entering into our future. The quicker you let go of your past, the quicker you move into your future. The longer we hold onto our past, the further we drift away from our future. To enter into the season of rest, stop looking back and look forward to what God has in store for you. The Israelites were free from shackles, bondage and oppression, but they were struggling because they wished to go back to the past (Numbers 11:4-6). Instead of looking forward to the future, they always wished to go back to the past.
Whenever we are in a ‘delay’, a waiting season or we think God has forgotten us, we are tempted to go back to the past (Exodus 16:2-3). Begin to say NO to your past by the power and grace of the Lord. Let’s take away the lid of the past of and move onto our destinies.
PRAYER: Father give me the grace to let go of the past. I come before You today and put the wounds, sin, pain of my past at Your feet. I lay hold of the future and I won’t look back!
When you look back to the past, you become dead to your future and you fail see the glory of God (Genesis 19:26; Luke 9:62). Be tired of your past. Tell yourself, ‘Enough is enough! I want to enter my place of rest and I hand over to You this baggage of my past’.
Elisha identified the power and authority over Elijah when Elijah called him by placing his mantle on him. Elisha kissed his glorious and secure past, goodbye. He wanted to make sure that there were no more distractions as he moved towards his future. He then wholeheartedly began to follow Elijah after he got rid of everything (1 Kings 19:19-21). God wants us to go deeper in the waters of the Spirit, to possess greater mountains, if only we could let go of our past.
Though God did miraculous things for the Israelites in the past, He told them not to hold onto or dwell on them. Instead they were to be expectant of the better future, the greater things God had in store for them (Isaiah 43:16-20). God wants to accomplish His great plans in your life. When God looks at us, He sees our future; not our past (Jeremiah 29:11). The past becomes a shield that prevents us from entering into the future.
With the Lord, it always gets better. Keep moving forward towards God. Every miracle in the Bible took place when the children of God chose to move forward to God (Haggai 2:9; Job 42:12). As God’s children, our path gets brighter and brighter (Proverbs 4:18). Receive the grace to press on and move forward towards Jesus (Philippians 3:5-14). When you are called by Christ, you are called to run a race. To run God’s race and finish well in victory, we must let go of the weights (Hebrews 12:1-3).
Blind Bartimaeus chose to let go of his garment that signified his past and came to Jesus (Mark 10:48-50). The longer we hold onto the past, the slower we run. It hurts to let go of the past, but it hurts the more to keep holding on to the past. To let go of the past, bring it to Jesus. Healing may take time, but as long as you keep on laying everything at His feet, He keeps working on you and giving you victory. God wants you to look through the eyes of faith not through the eyes of your past. Unless your heart is fully healed, you can’t fully enter into God’s rest.
It is better that God touches the wounds of your heart and heals you, instead of you touching them and making them worse.
There is a place of rest before you, but there is also a past behind you. The choice is yours. Choose God over your past.