You can live in the past, and be constrained by it. Or you
can learn from the past, leave the past in the past, and run without hindrance
toward the finish line. Which character in the New Testament, based on his
past, was least qualified to be a leader in the church? That would be Paul, the
pre-conversion terrorist whose passion was to track down and imprison
Christians. After Paul’s conversion, he could have easily crept back to his
hometown of Tarsus, lived a quiet life there, minding his own business, feeling
bad about his past sins, and waiting patiently for death. Except for one minor
detail: the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. He was chosen, and he was
called, and God had a plan to use his life (and yours and mine) for the Gospel.
That means that no one reading this column has a past that is bad enough to
disqualify you, even if you have been a terrorist. So, what do we do if we want
to know Christ and be useful to him in ministry? Paul said it like this:
“Forgetting what lies behind, and straining towards what lies ahead, I press on
toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Anything in our past or our present that would rob us of our
run after Christ needs to go. That could
mean failures of the past. We all have them. That could mean successes of the
past. We all have those as well. Leave them there, along with your past
defeats, and press on. This also means that if we are presently entangled in a
way that hinders our pursuit of Christ, we need to disentangle. Young people,
if you are in a relationship with someone who doesn’t make you want to be more
like Christ, that is a clear warning from God that he or she may not be the
right person for you. I would encourage you to seek godly counsel and not make
a lifelong mistake.
Maybe it’s not a relationship with a person that hinders
your run, but just a life filled with trivial pursuits. Paul wrote, “Have
nothing to do with silly, irreverent myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness.”
Silly, irreverent myths, or silly, irreverent activities could describe about
95% of what is on television or Netflix or at the theater, couldn’t it? Be
honest with yourself about this: are you saturated with entertainment to the
point that pursuing Christ is either a third-place hobby in your life or
something that doesn’t even show up at all? What would it look like for you and
me to train ourselves for godliness? To strain forward toward what lies ahead
instead of simply living for the next movie, the next Netflix series, the next
reality show, the next video game, the next ballgame, the next golf outing, the
next shopping spree, the next ____________(fill in the blank with your
preferred entertainment option.) It doesn’t mean we have to chuck our golf
clubs in the lake or our TVs in the woods. It might mean, however, that we put
limits on the many ways we tend to “amuse ourselves to death.” It will definitely
mean that we begin an earnest run after Christ. Look, you can put one of those
silly and sad 0.0 stickers on the back of your pickup if you want, proudly
announcing that you don’t run unless something is chasing you. But you cannot
put that sticker on your soul. If you know Jesus, you are called to run after Him
with all your might. Period.
Knowing Jesus and helping others to know Jesus was all that
really mattered to Paul. It was the one thing that marked his life more than
anything else. He let nothing get in the way of that pursuit.
What one change could you make in order to pursue the one
thing that matters most?
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