[Devotional] IN HIS PRESENCE: Put your past where it belongs

Read: JOHN 4:5-39

Meditation verse:

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Philippians 3:13).

God does not see you in your history, He sees you in your future. In order words He does not look at your mistakes, He looks at your potential. Look at the Samaritan woman at the well in the reading for today. If Jesus were to judge her for her past, He would not even come near her at the well, talk less of engaging her in a conversation. She had been married to five husbands and was at that time living with a man who was not her husband. Talk of a messed-up past! However, Jesus saw her potential as a witness for Him. She went on to evangelize a whole village.

You are not your past, so refuse to allow your past to speak into your future. Your past mistakes are not an indication of where you are going. Your past was meant to be a training ground, do not let it define you. In Isaiah 43:19, God said to Israel, “behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth”. But before He said that, He instructed them to forget the former things. Put your past where it belongs. Stop reliving it, stop talking about it, stop illuminating it. You cannot open a new chapter of your life if you keep reliving the former one. Besides when you keep focusing on you past, you are saying that God cannot touch or heal the past. The cross is a separator of your past from your future. “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Are you in Christ? If yes, then you are a new creation. It’s time to get excited about your future. Start thinking about it, start talking about it, start illuminating it. There is a reason why the front windshield of your car is much bigger than the rear-view mirror. What lies ahead of you is more important. Here’s God’s promise to you today: “for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). So, leave your past alone, ditch it or put it where it belongs.

IN HIS PRESENCE is written by Pst (Mrs) Oke Chinye, Founder of The Rock Teaching Ministry (TRTM).

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