“Brothers and sisters, 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 on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

When Paul wrote “forgetting what is behind” he was pointing out the importance of the forgiveness Jesus gives us. When we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus we can forget the pain of our past failures.

Forgetting doesn’t mean that we wipe out our memories. It means we make a conscious decision not to let the past absorb our attention and hinder our progress. This means that we aren’t held back by past mistakes. We have each experienced heartaches and disappointments but don’t let them hold you back. Jesus came to offer us a future that fulfills our wildest dreams. Goethe once wrote, “The one great truth is not that the past is dirty, but that the future is clean.”

Paul could have done what too many of us do. He could have walked around all his life bound by his history of persecuting Church. He remembered that past. He even talked about it, but he wasn’t tied to it. Jesus had taken away his guilt on the road to Damascus. Freedom from his past enabled him to become the great missionary, church planter and theologian he was.

Only God knows the promise of what each of us can become. One thing for certain is that He created each of us with a satisfying destiny in mind for us. Our part in embracing that promise is to do what Paul advised—“forgetting what is behind.”