PRESS FORWARD, FORGET THE PAST!

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward (Philippians 3:13-14). The devil wants each of us to concentrate on how far we have fallen, rather than how far we have risen. Satan wants us to focus on our pasts instead of our futures and on how far we still have to go, rather than how far we have come. He wants us to think about how many times we fail, rather than how many times we succeed. But God wants us to focus on our strengths and not our weaknesses, our victories and not our losses, our joys and not our problems. Philippians 3:13,14 tells us that God wants us to press forward and respond to His upward call and forget what lies behind us. Pay attention to what you focus on and magnify the works of the Lord. Do not believe the lies of the devil! [THE EVERYDAY LIFE BIBLE, The Amplified Bible, Notes and Commentary by Joyce Meyer, Faith Words, New York, 2006].