I want to talk to you today about drop it. We all have had negative things happen to us, people did us wrong, the company laid us off, a clerk was rude to us. It’s easy to go through life blaming others, blaming ourselves, even blaming God and because we’re always looking back, reliving the negative, we end up carrying around all this baggage that weighs us down.
One of the best things we can learn to do is drop it, let it go. Whether it happened 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago, don’t carry negative baggage from yesterday into today. You won’t live a victorious life if you’re always reliving what didn’t work out, who hurt you, the mistakes you’ve made. The reason it’s called the past is because it’s over. It’s done, it’s history, now do your part and let it go.
There is a new beginning in front of you but God will not release new opportunities as long as we’re holding on to you may have a lot of negative things in your past. You had a rough childhood. You lost a loved one. Your business didn’t make it. You could easily go around with a chip on your shoulder, not trusting anybody, bitter, you’ve gone through has deposited something on the inside.
You’re not defined by your past, you’re prepared by your past. You may not realize it, but you came out stronger, with more confidence, greater experience. If that hadn’t have happened, you wouldn’t be prepared for the new levels that are coming your way.
Living guilty and condemned doesn’t make it any better. You have to drop it. If you’ll get rid of that negative baggage, you’ll not only feel that heaviness release off of you, but then you’ll step into the new things that God has in store.
The scripture says where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, not where the Spirit of the Lord was. If you’re always thinking about yesterday, last month, last year, there’s no freedom there. That’s where the Spirit of the Lord was. This is a new day. There are new victories, new opportunities, new relationships. Quit living in what was and come over into what is. Right now, there is freedom for you. Right now, there are new beginnings, joy, peace, victory and crying over what happened yesterday doesn’t bring freedom.
Living in regrets of what you could have been, what you should have done doesn’t do anything productive. Being offended, angry, upset over what didn’t work out will only keep you in mediocrity. It’s time to drop it and move forward. You may be a product of your past, but you don’t have to be a prisoner of your past. Nothing that’s happened to you is a surprise to God.
Before he laid out the plan for your life, he already knew every person who would hurt you, every mistake you would make, every loss you would go through and the good God has already arranged a comeback. For every disappointment, a new beginning. For every failure, restoration. For all the ashes, he has beauty.
Here’s the key, if somebody hurt you, if you’ll give it to God, he’ll by your vindicator. Or if you’ve made mistakes, and we all have, quit beating yourself up and receive God’s mercy. It’s new every morning. If there are some things you don’t understand, you worked hard but you didn’t get the promotion or you did your best but your marriage didn’t make it, instead of carrying around that baggage, you have to be mature enough to say, “God, I don’t understand it, but I trust you. I’m not going to live bitter, I’m not going to go through life looking in my rearview mirror. I’m going to keep moving forward saying that my best days are still up ahead”.
Ecclesiastes says, “Better is the end than the beginning”. You may have had a rough start, but you don’t have to have a rough finish. Better is the end. Maybe you went through a disappointment, somebody broke your heart, the medical report wasn’t good, don’t get stuck on what happened yesterday. God is saying, something better is coming.
There maybe some rough places in the middle, but don’t stay focused on the betrayal, better is coming. The loan didn’t go through, don’t go around in self-pity, better is coming. You prayed and believed, but the medical report wasn’t good. That’s one report, but God has another report. He says, something better is coming. Now don’t cancel out the better by living in yesterday, reliving your hurts, your failures, the disappointments.
Paul said it this way in philippians, “I focus all of my energies on this one thing, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead”. Here’s a man who wrote almost half of the new testament. He could have said, “I focus all of my energies on being a better writer, on developing my leadership skills, on impacting the culture in a greater way”.
He said in effect, what’s more important than all of that is forgetting what lies behind. He knew if we went through life carrying negative baggage, we would miss our destiny, and Paul had a lot of adversities. He was falsely accused and put in prison. He was beaten with these rods, shipwrecked, gone without food, and shelter, on and on. If he had not learned this principle, he would have become bitter, angry, “God, why is this happening to me? It’s not fair”.
Translation of that verse I quoted he said, “I have not attained it all yet but this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind”. He was saying, “I’m not all I should be but one thing I have down, one thing I’m good at I know how to let go of the past”. He was an expert at dropping it, and sometimes we spend more energy holding on to the negative than we do letting it go.
What if we were to do like Paul and start focusing our energies on moving forward, dropping the offense, dropping the guilt, dropping the hurt? How do you drop it? Stop thinking about it and stop talking about it. Don’t relive the negative things that have happened to you. The reason some people never see the better is because they’re always opening up old wounds. Every week they call their friend, “Can you believe what they did to me”? That happened 27 years ago, they’re still dragging it up like it happened yesterday.
If you’re going to get free, you need to not only drop it, you need to bury it, have a funeral for it, put it away once and for all, make a decision you’re going to talk about it another time. When you’re tempted to, just zip it up. That betrayal, that failure, that disappointment is dead. You buried it, you had a funeral, it’s over, it’s done. It’s in the past.
Coming home from a night of hope and we leave on thursdays and come home friday night after the event. I had forgotten to pack an extra pair of socks so I put my socks on thursday morning and we traveled to that city and did a book signing that night, had a lot of activity, got up the next morning and didn’t have time to go to the store, so I put my same socks back on. That afternoon I worked out and perspired and all, that night did the three-hour night of hope, shook hundreds of hands afterwards.
When I got on the plane to come back home that friday night, I was so tired and I took my shoes off just so I could rest a little bit and put my head back and about 10, 15 minutes later, Victoria came back to where I was sitting. She said, “What in the world is that smell? It stinks so bad back here”. She saw I had my shoes off. She said, “Joel, put your shoes back on. It stinks really bad”. I said, “No, my feet don’t stink”. I couldn’t smell anything. I’d been back there 10 or 15 minutes, but here’s my point.
Sometimes when we stink, we don’t know it. When we carry around bitterness, unforgiveness, guilty, angry at our neighbor, you may not realize it, but that’s stinking up your life. That’s pushing people and opportunities away. Why don’t you get the stinky stuff out? There’s an amazing future in front of you. There’s beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, dancing for heaviness, but you gotta move forward. Maybe you need to bury a you’ve lived guilty, condemned, down on yourself long enough.
Have a funeral for it and put it behind you. No more talking about it, no more letting the accuser convince you that you’re just a failure, you don’t deserve to be blessed, you’re unworthy. Those lies will stink up your life. Don’t let the defeat play in your mind.
When the failure, the mistake, the guilty, the disappointment comes back up on the movie screen in your mind, do yourself a favor, change the channel. Have the attitude, “I’m not going backwards. I’m not living in regrets. I’m not rehearsing my failures. I’m moving forward. I may have made some mistakes, but I’ve got a promise better is the end”. If you’ll get your mind going forward, your life will go forward.