"So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” (Genesis 19:17)
Today's passage is the instruction given by the angel of the Lord to Lot and his family. The angel gave Lot’s family this instruction after the Lord had removed them from Sodom and Gomorrah. The instruction was firm and urgent, ‘don’t look back’. Lot and his family had to escape to the nearby mountains outside of the doomed cities they had called home.
The angel’s urgent command to Lot’s family is still relevant to us today. Though ours may not be a literal Sodom and Gomorrah, we are also required to flee our toxic past. When God delivers us from a bad situation, we must endeavour not to continue living in that same situation. Neither should we look back at what the Lord has freed us from with longing and nostalgia.
It is easier to look backwards than forward. ‘Back’ represents the past you’re coming from. ‘Forward’ represents where you’re going in the future. Because the past is the only thing we have experienced, we get tempted to keep our eyes there. Remember:
Don’t look back at sins that you’ve repented of. – your memory is not greater than the blood of Jesus. If you truly repented of your sins and asked for God’s forgiveness, you can trust His promise.
Don’t look back at the opportunities you missed. – You can’t change the past, but you CAN affect the future—through Christ who strengthens you. There may be bad decisions in the past. The reality is that you cannot go back to live in your past. What is gone is gone.
Don’t look back at old conflicts that make you bitter. – Give them up and put them away forever, and live with a spirit of joy and cheerfulness and hopefulness. If you rehearse old conflicts, the hurt returns again and again and again. When we rehash old conflicts, it reopens old wounds. Even those memories where forgiveness has taken place will become dangerous if you keep revisiting them.
Don’t look back at all that went wrong in 2020. We are in a New Year which has so much to offer. Let’s trust God to make this a fruitful year for us in all respects.
True words. Indeed, it is easier for one to keep dwelling on his or her past sins than to move after been redeemed of them but then one of the ways to which we can be freed is to move and never look back. If we don't do that, we will never be worthy of the walk with Christ.
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