God put the principle of a "new start" in the entire universe. In Genesis chapter one, He worked six days, and on the seventh day He rested. Sunday starts a new week all over again.
We give praise to God as we celebrate on Sundays, because it's resurrection day. Jesus arose on this day, and the early church began to worship on the first day of the week.
We celebrate a new day every day, because the earth rotates every twenty-four hours. No matter how dark it gets in the night, morning always comes. A new moon comes up monthly.
Every year, we have a new beginning as the earth makes one complete revolution around the sun during that one-year period. Then it starts all over again.
After winter comes spring. God said. "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22).
God put the principle of "starting over" in the earth. If you have a bad crop one year, you can start over and plant a new crop the next year! Each year brings a new harvest.
The Bible is filled with accounts of people beginning again. God made a beautiful, perfect Garden and put Adam and Eve in it. In spite of its perfectness, they fell. The moment they fell, God initiated a new beginning. He said, "the seed of women is going to crush your head, devil. It's going to destroy your power and take away what you've done" (Gen. 3:15, Paraphrased).
When Jesus came, our calendar started over. It changed from B.C. to A.D. When Jesus came, time began again. That was no accident. Life begins, not at 40, but with the acceptance of Jesus Christ in your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.
Forgetting Those Things Which Are Behind
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 (Phil. 3:13-14 KJV).
The prize of the high calling of God is in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the prize. He's the trophy. He's the wreath. He's the goal. He's the purpose of your life, for in Him is life. Jesus said, "...I am the resurrection and the life...."
Paul was saying, "I haven't arrived yet. I'm not perfect." But he continued, "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind...."
Do you have some things you'd like to forget from your past? It takes God's grace to forget. Grace is God's power, ability and enablement. It's not your works, but it's by His gift of grace that you are able to let go of the past, knowing that because of Jesus' shed blood, the past is wiped out as you accept His complete work at Calvary.
People hold on to the past for several reasons.
They've had some great things happen in the past, and in a nostalgic attitude, they relive it again and again.
Then there are people who hold on to the past because it was so bad. They hold on through regret and remorse, and the memory of it is played over and over again.
Today is a great day to forget and lay aside those things "which are behind" that are keeping you from going forward.
If you are holding on to things of the past, it's impossible to reach out and receive the fresh and the new. Paul said, "I let go of those things." Paul had some difficult years, yet as he wrote this, he had some great things to rejoice about: what he had done in the ministry and his impact in the earth.
He said, "I'm forgetting those things, because there are greater things ahead of me."
Your future is going to be better than your past. You have everything to look forward to, because your future is out of this world!
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Billy Joe Daugherty was founder and pastor of Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was also the founder of Victory Christian School, Victory Bible Institute and Victory World Missions Training Center.
