Pastor Harry (September Family Talk )
September 14, 2011
Dear Congregation,
Someone once said, “The past isn’t our past if it is still
affecting our present.” A personal past, and we all have one,
and sometimes they are not very glorious. In some cases,
a painful past is the consequence of our own bad choices.
I call this “self-inflicted wounds.” Often, however,
the heartache from the past has been caused by others:
Betrayal, unfaithfulness, deceit, broken trust, slander.
They become like wounds. Did you know it is impossible
to reach and stretch for the future when we live
in the pain of the past?
At age 30 (thirteen years after his brothers sold him into slavery),
Joseph is given Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera,
priest of On (Gen. 41:50). The name of his firstborn son was Manasseh
(meaning “made to forget.”) For he said, “God has made forget
all of my hardship and the loss of my father’s home.”
The name of his second son was Ephraim (fruitfulness).
“For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affiliction.”
(Gen. 41:1-52.) Joseph determined that he would not be a
prisoner of his past. He learned all that had happened in the past
prison season of his live was nither fatal nor final.
I like what the Apostle Paul shared in Phill, 3:13-14:
“One thing I do forgetting what lies ahead.
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Godin Christ Jesus.”
Let go of the past.
Press toward the future.
It just could turn your life around.
