“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  — Philippians 3:13-14

Happy New Year to you. Congratulations on seeing another year. All thanks to God for his mercies, for it is by them that we are not consumed. The dawn of a new year provides you an opportunity to take stock of different facets of your life in the outgone year and reach certain conclusions – whether to maintain the status quo or make adjustments for the better.

Being spared by God to see another year also means that he isn’t done with you. That you are alive means there are higher heights that you can ascend to in your walk with God, and every other facet of life like your education, trade, vocation, business, ministry, to name but a few. God has plans for you, good plans. They are not plans to hurt you but to give you hope and a good future (Jeremiah 29:11). Ever before you came into this year, the One who knows the end from the beginning had gone ahead of you and planned for your arrival into this year. His plans are good plans. It is you who is limited in scope and ability that spends time being anxious and fretting over what lies ahead. The almighty has no such limitations; nothing will take him by surprise. He has it all planned out.

It behoves you therefore, to cooperate with him so as to bring those good plans to fruition. One way to do that is to forget what is behind.

What Does It Mean to Forget?

In our most common everyday usage, to forget means to lose remembrance of or be unable to think or recall. That definition will not serve us here. The Lord himself said, “I will forget their sins” (Hebrews 8:12). This does not mean that the Lord loses memory of the sins of his people or is unable to recall them. It means that God, out of his rich mercies, forgives the sins of those who come to him through Jesus and blots them away, choosing not to allow those sins to interfere in his relationship with the redeemed. He says in Isaiah 43:25, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” This forgetting of sins is part of the blessings of the new covenant, secured for us by Jesus’ blood. You may recall that in the old covenant, “those sacrifices [were] an annual reminder of sins” (Hebrews 10:3).

Consider also Joseph, who named his firstborn Manasseh saying, “God has made me forget all my troubles and all my father’s household” (Genesis 41:51). When he saw his brothers later, of course he knew who they were and recalled what they did to him, but forgetting meant he chose not to allow their past offences to affect their present relationship. He didn’t live in the past.

The above is a long and winding way to say ‘forget’ means to choose, by God’s help, to let go of the past and not allow it to negatively impact today and tomorrow.

What You Must Forget

Most of the occurrence of the word ‘forget’ in Scripture comes as a warning, urging us to not forget. While that is good for a species that is prone to forgetfulness, it is perhaps a welcome deviation that we have something we are urged to forget. In order to take hold of that which God has planned for you in the year ahead, it is imperative that you forget at least three things:

Forget Your Hurts

In the story of Joseph referred to above, he had to forget his troubles and his father’s household for him to move forward into God’s plans for him that were revealed to him in his dreams. It was these dreams, the revelation of them to his family, that brought trouble to his life. When he met his brothers, who preferred twenty shekels of Ishmaelite silver to him, he forgot their offence. It is no light thing to forget being sold into slavery to a foreign land with a different culture and religion, yet Joseph did just that. In the past year, maybe you had cause to cry; forget it. Some people dwell so much on their hurts that they are kept from going forward. They become prisoners of their hurts while those who hurt them go about their lives without even remembering what they had done. Failure to forget your hurts limits you. In the parable of the unmerciful servant, he couldn’t enjoy the forgiveness that had been extended to him because he couldn’t let go of the debt he was owed, which hurt him. See where he ended (Matthew 18:21-35). Unforgiveness is a prison, get out of it.

If your hands still hold on to the hurts of yesterday, how can they be free to take hold of the blessings God has lined up for you in the year ahead and beyond? Let go and let God.

This is so true of the married. As someone has said, there is no way that you bring together two imperfect people from different backgrounds, and keep them so close as in marriage, sleeping on the same bed, that their imperfections will not cross over and cause offence. Your marriage suffers when you refuse to forget the hurts you have suffered from your spouse. Hold on to them and you too will not enjoy that union. Forget the hurts and see what God will do to heal your home. A successful marriage is a union of two people who continually forgive each other. This year, for your marriage to move forward, forget what is behind.

If your hands still hold on to the hurts of yesterday, how can they be free to take hold of the blessings God has lined up for you in the year ahead and beyond? Let go and let God.

Forget Your Failures

In our main text, Paul said he does one thing so he could strain toward what is ahead: he forgot what was behind. In the outgone year or even years, doubtless you must have failed. You may have failed by sinning. Perhaps no one knew of your sin but you and God. Without minimizing it, confess, ask for and receive forgiveness, forsake it and move on. Sometimes what keeps a person bound to their past failures is not that God has not forgiven them but that they do not forgive themselves; they do not forget their sins. I must add a caveat here, that I am not talking about a sinful belittling of sin. What I am talking about is asking you to do what God does with your sins after you confess and ask for forgiveness: he forgets them. You too, forget them. The Psalmist David said, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For night and day your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you … and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:3-5). When he kept silent and didn’t confess, his sin took a toll even on his physical body but when he confessed, he received forgiveness and healing. The failures you do not forget will keep their guilt in your heart, sap your strength and stop you from going forward.

Failure can hurt your ego so your first task is to trim down your ego and then forget what is behind.

The failures you need to forget in order to move forward are not only moral failures. Whatever kind of failure it is, glean the lessons that there are in it and make corrections where necessary. Maybe you took an exam to get admission into school and you failed. Perhaps it was a qualifying exam to help you advance in your career but you didn’t measure up. How does not forgetting what is behind help you pass that exam? The fear of failing again, occasioned by memories of past failures that you did not forget, will only keep you from succeeding. You can only take the next step when you forget what is behind, prepare better and take it again. Could your failure have been at work, as a spouse, as a parent or guardian, as a teacher of God’s word, as a leader? What is past is past and should be left behind. Learn lessons from those failings, forget them and move forward. Failure can hurt your ego so your first task is to trim down your ego and then forget what is behind. Abraham, Jacob, David, Samson, Peter and others in Scripture all failed at different times but recovered to continue walking with God. Judas Iscariot couldn’t let it go and he hung himself, leaving no room for a better tomorrow. Nothing debilitates like a guilty conscience. If you must move forward, you must forget your failures and embrace God’s forgiveness. Only then can you take possession of what lies ahead in the year.

Forget Your Successes

We love to dwell on our successes so this might rather come as a surprise. But if you read the preceding parts of Philippians 3, before the verses we chose to dwell on, you will see that the context of Paul’s forgetting what is behind is actually of his successes.

He said if anyone had reasons to boast in the flesh, he (Paul) had more: he was a covenant-keeping Jew (circumcised on the eight day); a native Israelite and not a proselyte (of the people of Israel); belonged to the tribe of the beloved last born, in which the temple stood and who stayed with Judah when all the other tribes revolted (of the tribe of Benjamin); a pure breed, born of an Israeli father and Israeli mother, with none of his ancestors entangled with gentiles (a Hebrew of Hebrews); tutored by the eminent law scholar, Gamaliel, and lived according to the strictest tenets of his religious sect (in regard to the law, a Pharisee); he was no slouch in his religion but an active member who persecuted those who believed differently (as for zeal, persecuting the church); conducted his life without blemish (as for legalistic righteousness, faultless) (Philippians 3:4-6). These were lofty credentials that any Jew who possessed them would be proud of.

What did the apostle do? Being fully aware of, and estimating the worth of, all his privileges, honours and advantages, he counted them as a loss compared to the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. He considered every achievement as rubbish so that he could gain Christ. (Philippians 3:7-11). This is part of the reason why God allowed a thorn in Paul’s flesh – to keep him humble (2 Corinthians 12:7). Nevertheless, he had a decision to make – to consciously forget what was behind (his past successes), and to press on and strain forward to what was ahead.

A humble estimation of your past successes is good, but not sufficient. As you correctly valuate them, you must go further to press on and strain toward what is ahead.

Let’s emphasize a bit what Paul did as part of forgetting what was behind. First, he didn’t think that he had arrived or had been made perfect or had taken hold of it (Philippians 3:12,13). If you think you have arrived, you will spend your life revelling in your trophies and lifting them up for the world to see. That will keep you from making progress. Second, he pressed on and strained toward what lay ahead. A humble estimation of your past successes is good, but not sufficient. As you correctly valuate them, you must go further to press on and strain toward what is ahead. This means you must exert yourself to the utmost of your God-given abilities in order to take possession of what God has in store for you.

The Ultimate Goal

Whatever your goals or hopes or dreams for the year are, strive for them. Do all within your power under God to achieve success. However, never lose sight of what the ultimate goal of all our pursuits should be. Paul said, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). The ultimate goal is a heaven with Jesus. Paul also said, “If the only benefit of our hope in Christ is limited to this life on earth, we are to be pitied more than all others!” (1 Corinthians 15: 19). Jesus also asked, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). As good as forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead is, let nothing be done only for this life without a thought for the life to come.

As good as forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead is, let nothing be done only for this life without a thought for the life to come.

If you will advance toward what is ahead, then you must look ahead. You can’t drive forward while focusing on the rear-view mirror; you will drive yourself into a disaster by doing so. You have some forgetting to do: your hurts, your failures and your successes. See you ahead.