Hebrews
12:1-2, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,
let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles
us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfected of faith, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God.”
I could go a
dozen different directions with this passage of scripture, but what is on my
mind is something that my boss told me yesterday. He said, “When you can raise
the dead, you can live in the past.”
My wife
would say, count your blessing, not what you don’t have.
Tying these
thoughts together is what the author of Hebrews said. Jesus did not get
entangled in His past, He did not allow His former glory at the right hand of God
to detract or otherwise affect His task at hand. He left a place of being
worshiped in heaven to come to earth and live within the same frail human
experience of us all. Christ looked ahead, to the joy before Him, to fulfill His
destiny. Yes He would sit at the right hand of God again, but He while in the
midst of the trial called human life, and in the midst of saving mankind in
death on the cross He never looked back missing the right hand of God from
where He came. He did not want to go to the cross. The writer says, He “despised
the shame.” But He never looked back to His former glory and cursed today. He never looked back
even to yesterday. He just kept looking forward.
We too are
required to look forward. But to do so, to fix our eyes on Jesus is not as
simple as saying I am going to do that. On the contrary we have to consciously “lay
aside every encumbrance” in surrender. We lay aside in forgiveness any bad
parenting, or bullying, or other abuse our past presented. We lay aside bad
habits that inhibit the fruit of the spirit or cloud our faithfulness or faith.
We deal with the past when the past keeps us from looking forward, but once it’s
dealt with we never look back.
I think of
Lott’s wife who looked back leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, missing the
entanglement and the sin she was turned to a pillar of salt. I think of
Proverbs 26:11, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his
folly.” Life is all folly. There is nothing in anyone’s past that is pure
perfection. I for one have got to stop looking back, and look forward. I need
to look to Christ standing on the finish line and run the endurance race of
life. I need to count today’s blessing, not miss yesterday’s blessings, and not
worry about tomorrow blessings.
But most of
all I simply need to stop looking back.
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