{"id":46798,"date":"2022-10-01T02:33:31","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T07:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/do-we-look-back-or-look-ahead-bible-study\/"},"modified":"2022-10-01T02:33:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T07:33:31","slug":"do-we-look-back-or-look-ahead-bible-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/do-we-look-back-or-look-ahead-bible-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Look Back Or Look Ahead? &#8211; Bible study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The great American baseball player Satchel Paige once said in jest, &#8220;Don&#8217;t look back &#8220; something may be gaining on you.&#8221; In contrast, George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author said, &#8220;Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So which is it? Do we move on, never looking back, or do we dwell on our past errors to avoid making them again?<\/p>\n<p>Scripture seems to indicate that we should do a little of both. We do need to think back on our lives and learn from our mistakes. That&#8217;s part of the process when we confess our sins and ask God for forgiveness (1 John 1:9). We need to think about our disobedience long enough to seek God&#8217;s mercy and then choose to &#8220;go and sin no more&#8221; (John 8:11). Forgiveness is God&#8217;s way of clearing the slate, but it&#8217;s our responsibility to avoid repeating the errors of the past. For example, the apostle Paul acknowledged his past mistakes and then focused on becoming more like Christ (Philippians 3:13-14).<\/p>\n<p>So, is it best for us to look back or to look ahead? We would be wise to do a little of both: We need to look back for forgiveness, then look ahead, focusing on Christ and the &#8220;milk of the word&#8221; for future spiritual growth (Proverbs 4:23-27; cf. Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:1-2).<\/p>\n<p><em>More like the Master I would live and grow,<br \/> More of His love to others I would show;<br \/> More self-denial like His in Galilee,<br \/> More like the Master I long to ever be.<\/em> &#8220;Gabriel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The great American baseball player Satchel Paige once said in jest, &#8220;Don&#8217;t look back &#8220; something may be gaining on you.&#8221; In contrast, George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author said, &#8220;Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.&#8221; So which is it? Do we move on, never looking back, or do we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/do-we-look-back-or-look-ahead-bible-study\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Do We Look Back Or Look Ahead? &#8211; Bible study&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}