Forget Tomorrow
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Memory is a funny thing
Memory is a funny thing
Memory really is a funny thing. It is odd the things we forget and the things we remember.
And so often we tend to remember the things we should forget and we forget the things we should remember.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
We are very good at forgetting the benefits of God. we forget his care, his promises, his grace - every-time we sin we forget his presence.
we forget the commands and statues of God word
16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
He is making a point to remember because of how easily it is to forget.
Things we should never Forget
Things we should never Forget
Let us talk for just a moment abouot tings the bible commands us to never forget.
61 Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law.
141 I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.
1 My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments,
As you can see God wants us to remeber much.
He wants you to always remember his love, his compassion, his presence, is promises and of course God wants you to remember that He is coming again soon and we are be ready.
44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
But what about the Past?
But what about the Past?
What about past memories? Well past memories are interesting.
Oner one hand we must remind ourselves of the things God did for us in the past.
6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
9 “And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea,
10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day.
11 And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters.
12 By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.
13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments,
14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant.
15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
This long prayer is a recalling of God’s past deeds of goodness.
We may have some wonderful memories of God’s past working in our lives, and remembering them is good and encouraging, However: we must never dwell on them and “miss them”. we must never be “things were better back in my day...”
18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
This is a warning against Nostalgia.
But what about past pain that still hurts?
My friends, hurts and pain are part of life - suffering is the price we pay for all the joys of being live.
And so we will have times of pain and suffering. We will have bad things happen to us. Sometimes they are minor and just a nuisance, sometimes for some they are major and life changing.
Sometimes bad things will happen by accident with no one to blame, other times bad will happen at the hands of bad people and deliberately wanted to hurt you.
1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?
3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
So the tower has fallen or the blood has been spilled - one is accidental and the other is deliberate - both hurt and both cause pain.
But what do we do when pains from our past persist and actually start jeopardising our present and our future?
Forgetting the Past
Forgetting the Past
13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
How simple do those words sound - just forgetting the what lies behind.
How on earth do we do that?
Well first we have to ask: why do we remember anything in the first place?
I can remember what was done to me 30 years ago, but i cannot remember what i had to supper on Friday last week, sometimes i cant even remember what i had for breakfast that same day!
Why do we remember some things, but not others?
What is the point of memory anyways?
The point of any memory is to learn!
11 Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.
Memory serves to teach us. And somethings burn themselves into our memories because our sub-conscience knows that there is a powerful lesson that must be learned form what happened.
And let me say this: before you can or even should forget anything you MUST first learn the lesson its trying to teach you.
And this requires lots of thought and diligence and leading of the Holy Spirit.
What do i mean?
Did you run out of money? ok, a lesson would be to live a less expensive life and pout away money each month for rainy day - are you do that? no? then you havent learned the lesson.
Did you get drunk and date raped? terrible - ok a lesson would be to stop drinking immediately and avoid all those hangouts? did you quite drinking? no? then you didn't learn the lesson.
Did you get sick out of nowhere? ok, what could you have done better? could you have lived a more healthy lifestyle and go for more checks up? are you? Yes? well done you learned!
Ddid someone attack you? oh dear, ok a lesson might be that you will learn to defend yourselves reducing your chance of being a victim? are you learning to defend yourself, no? then you will live in fear for a long time.
So the memory exits not to haunt you but to help you figure out what when wrong, and what can you do so that it does not happen again.
But what do we do once we have learned our lesson?
How do we “forget the things that are behind?”
Well the passage itself tell us
The greek word “forget” is the word epi-lan-than-o-mi
And it is also used in another well know bible passage:
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
The greek word for “forget” is the same word they use for “neglect”.
In other words, to forget a bad memory, after we have learn from it, you must neglect it.
What does it mean to neglect something?
You dont look after it, you dont feed it, you dont give it any attention, you dont talk to it, or about it, you ignore it.
That is what we must do with the painful things that lie behind us.
We must stop nurturing those memories with out thoughts, our conversations, our lonely moment of contemplation, and we must start neglecting them, dont talk about them, you have learned from them, you are thankful God brought you through them, but stop feeding them.
Thinking about them only makes you sad and angry or depressed or frustrated.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.