The Danger of Looking Back and the Blessing of Remembering

This week is a time for remembering. This coming Sunday is the Sunday of all Sundays as we celebrate our living Lord Jesus Christ and the great Salvation He has given to us in His Life, death, burial, and resurrection from the dead.

The way we do that is by remembering Christ in the Lord’s Supper, on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday. We remember when the story of Jesus became personal and real to us, when we received Jesus Christ into our hearts and were born again to a new relationship with God in Him and the future we have with Him. Hallelujah!

But there is a danger in looking back. Nothing about us points backward. God created us to move forward. We are prone to look back and tempted to go back for all the wrong reasons.

Some look back on “the good old days” with a longing for the way it was to be the way it should be now. That kind of thinking focuses upon something lost rather than something gained. This results in a life of ingratitude and misses the blessings of God today and yesterday.

Then there are those who look back with a longing to go back to “do over” some missed opportunity or mistake. With this backward glare, there is always regret, guilt, and/or condemnation.

We wonder what Lot’s wife was looking back to Sodom to see. Was she wanting to go back, or was she wanting to see them get what they deserved!? Either way, God was letting us know that it may be better to be a pillar of salt than to live with that kind of “backward look.”

In Christ there is now no condemnation, no guilt, nothing left undone. Jesus cried out on the Cross, “It is finished!” In triumph, He buried the past forever and inaugurated the New Creation with that victorious shout!

Still others claim that the past is instructive; learn from it. But God did not create us to look back in order to learn from the past. He created us to learn from Him, today; to ask Him for wisdom, today; to learn His ways and move forward with Him, today. Our foolish forefathers took the bait that we could learn from a tree (Genesis 3) rather than from God. And today, we are still going after that bait; desiring to learn from everything other than from God.

But God commands us to remember. The Hebrew word “remember” in the Old Testament involves much more than our English word “remember.” The Hebrew word “remember” encompassed a trinity of reflection (past), realization (present), and rehearsal (future); all centered upon God.

The Jews were given annual feasts by God in order to reflect upon the majesty and mighty deeds of God for them in the past, to realize that the very same God was active among them and with them right now, and to rehearse the promises of God for the future. We need to redefine our word “remember” to guard against wanting to go back in order to enjoy, to fix, to get back at, and/or to learn something.

And so, let’s remember Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let’s glance back with gratitude that God did not leave us back there in the past, and that He has led us to where we are today in order to prepare us for what He desires to give us tomorrow. Let’s give thanks and enjoy today what He is doing among us and seek with joyful anticipation for what He has promised to us and prepared for us in the future. It is all about Him, from Him, for Him, and to Him! Hallelujah; Blessed be His Holy Name!

The Problem With Self Esteem

For decades the self-help books, seminars, sermons, Bible studies, and message has identified the problem in our lives as “low self esteem.” Everything was blamed on “low self esteem.” To correct this problem there has been an emphasis upon developing a better self esteem by various methods.

Developing better self esteem is popular in just about any context; in family, in sports, in business, in education, and especially in religion. The problem with developing a higher (higher = better) self esteem is that once you develop a higher self esteem you end up with a greater problem than when you had low self esteem; higher = greater, and with self esteem “greater” = a bigger problem. Anyway you look at it, self esteem whether it is low or high, is your problem.

In religious circles this becomes very deceptive. In religion, self esteem is preached and taught under the heading of self-development; how to become a better….whatever; a better person, a better partner, a better entrepreneur, a better pray-er, a better pew-sitter (church member), a better part of society (participating more in compassionate causes). The message goes on and on and ends up with “as you learn and develop into the kind of person God wants you to be, you will feel better about yourself and about everything around you.” The end of the message reveals the problem; “…everything around YOU,” which is also why it is so popular.

The Bible teaches that self esteem must be lowered down to the lowest level; into the grave! Trying to improve (develop) self esteem will only create a bigger monster (good flesh, nice flesh, educated flesh…is still flesh! Of the worst kind). But once the death sentence for self esteem is carried out (crucified with Christ and buried, Romans 6:3-11), Someone else can become the focus, The Lord Jesus Christ! Then every circumstance, every experience, everything that happens is about Him, not you. When trouble strikes, you won’t ask, “God, what did I do, what are You trying to teach me…” Instead you will simply say, “God, this is not about me, this is about YOU, because everything in my life is about YOU and knowing YOU more; do what You do best, BE GLORIFIED, GOD!!! HALLELUJAH!”

Once you stop worrying about your “self-development” and start seeking, pursuing, desiring, digging, thirsting and hungering for and after God, He will begin forming Christ in you. You won’t even know how that development is coming along because you will only be focused on knowing Him. Then and only then will all of your esteem be of Him, by Him, to Him, and for Him. Hallelujah.