We thank God for His mercies and grace upon us that has enabled us to see the New Year 2020. The year 2020 is a year that God has made and crowned with His goodness and there are new opens doors of opportunities to enjoy His goodness and blessings before us. Such new open doors include; open doors to high personal development and achievements, new open doors to new ventures, new jobs and businesses that will lead to financial breakthroughs, new open doors to richer fellowship with God and other spiritual discovery, and several other open doors. These are sure new open doors that just spring open before us. Isaiah 43:19.

However, as sure as the new open doors of the new year 2020 are, there are also adversaries that would want to oppose/ hinder one from seeing the new open doors; such adversaries as spoken of by Apostle Paul that “ a great door and effectual is open unto me, and there are many adversaries.” 1 Corinthians 16:9. Topmost on the list of the adversaries against new open doors is REMEMBERING /HOLDING ON TO OUR PAST. Remembering our past implies to continue to think, ponder and dwell/hold on to our past in our heart. Our past is in two parts –the good/ positive past and the bad/ negative past. Our good/positive past has to do with our past achievements and successes while our bad /negative past has to do with our past failures, losses, defeats, heartaches, hurts, disappointments and regrets.

Remembering/holding on to our good/positive past can prevent us from seeing new open doors because it makes us unnecessarily over-confident or too proud of ourselves whereby we become relaxed and rest on our oars and stop making further moves for advancement into greater heights. This leaves so many heights unscaled. Jan Glidewell has this to say about holding on to our past – “you can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

Remembering our bad or negative past weakens, demoralizes, destabilizes, and discourages and blinds us. It does not just blind one from seeing new opportunities standing right before our very eyes, it also makes one have a negative mindset, which looks upon every circumstances in life as barriers of attainment. There is nothing that wastes ones precious time and energy and also makes one feel miserable, hopeless and depressed as remembering and thinking of one’s negative past.

Therefore God commanded us through Prophet Isaiah saying, “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” Isaiah 43:18. To “remember not” implies to forget, to stop thinking/ pondering, to let go, to stop holding and dwelling on to the past. Apostle Paul did exactly this as he revealed in Philippians 3: 12-14. Apostle Paul neither allowed his terrible past of persecuting the believers hunt his present calling of God upon his life and he did not allow all his spiritual attainments, to stop him from pressing forward to meet the mark. Doing this was what helped him to achieve greater heights in his ministry.

There are very many new things God is doing in our lives and around us and many new open doors before us in 2020 as He says “Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make away in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43: 18-19. We must not miss out of all these at all.

The truth is that most times forgetting our past is something that does not come easy because the more we try, the more they stare straight at us in our eyes. The surest way to achieve this is handling our past hurt to Jesus Christ our burden bearer (Matthew 11:28-30) and He would make available His grace to forget them to you. Therefore it is important we make deliberate efforts and choose to forget our past and embrace the present.

The past things worth remembering are God’s past faithfulness, and wonders in our lives as we are told in Isaiah 46:9-11. Doing this helps us retain God in our memory and remain in an attitude of gratitude towards Him. This rejoices the heart and strengthens our faith. It enlightens the eyes and helps us see new open doors of opportunities everywhere even in difficult opportunities where there seems to be no way.

May God help us overcome all adversaries that would want to oppose our seeing the New Year 2020 as a “great door” of wonderful opportunities opened to us in Jesus name Amen.

GOD LOVES YOU AND SO DO I.
www.lovelashblog.com