Luke 17:32
Remember Lot’s wife.
Many saints today suffer from spiritual nostalgia-a sentimental yearning to return to some past period or to some irrecoverable condition. When this problem afflicts you, you tend to glorify the past and the world. Somehow, your dark past looks brighter and attractive. The chains and burdens of your days of slavery somehow appear rosy and lighter.
You find yesterday so appealing that you fail to enjoy today. You’re stuck back in history and frequently go down “Memory Lane”. You long for your old, unsaved life. You admire the world so much that you overlook the greater glory you are in. Your preoccupation with history derails your future. Let not that be your portion!
Dear friend, what events in your past threaten to ruin your walk with Christ today? What past experiences are trying to sabotage your destiny? What memories threaten to turn you into a pillar of salt, akin to Mrs Lot (Genesis 19:26)?
Now, we may not literally turn to salt as such, but something equally drastic happens to us spiritually when we look back to the world or to our past. From a spiritual viewpoint, turning into a pillar of salt means you become statue-like. Of course, statues resemble real-life figures, but they are in fact lifeless. They may look beautiful artistically, but they are dead. How tragic it is when your spirituality is reduced to a religious monument!
That is what happens to believers who dwell in the past. They don’t lose the form of godliness and respectability of religion. But like a statue, their worship is cold, rigid, fireless and lifeless. It’s purely statuesque.
Such is the fate of saints who spend more time in regret than in expectation.
Filled with sorrow, they mourn yesterday’s losses. On the other hand, faith-the substance of things hoped for-looks ahead, not backwards. Let us forget the past and press on towards the heavenly prize (Phil 3:13-14). No more turning back!
Pastor Josh