If you try to run forward in God while looking back at your past failures, you will get tripped up. There is no way you can keep holding on to the failures or offenses of the past and still effectively run the race God has set before you.
You can't effectively run forward into what God has called you to do while you're still looking back at the past.

I learned that lesson the hard way one day when I was a tomboy playing football with some other kids in the street. I went out for a pass, running just as fast as I could—and when I looked back to catch the ball, I smashed right into a parked car. I guarantee you, I never did that again!

If you try to run forward in God while looking back at your past failures, you will get tripped up. There is no way you can keep holding on to the failures or offenses of the past and still effectively run the race God has set before you.

God wants to set you free from the hurts of the past. It doesn't matter what you've done, the word "past" means past.

Perhaps your "past" happened just five minutes ago. Ask God to heal you of any offense you have suffered and to forgive you for any wrong reaction to that offense. Then rest in the fact that God is faithful.

Stand fast on First John 1:9. This verse wasn't written to sinners; it was written to believers. John said, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

I heard that someone once conducted an analytical study of the word all, tracing it back to its roots. That person discovered that the word "all" literally means all.

The Bible says it is God "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases" (Ps. 103:3). In other words, God isn't holding the past against you. You need to forgive yourself of the past and let it go.

It doesn't matter how many times you have fallen short in an area, once you confess your sin, God does not remember it anymore.

I heard a minister talk about how he was feeling condemned and guilty for blowing it again in the same area. He went before the Lord saying, "God, I must be coming to you for the 92nd time to ask for forgiveness for the same thing."

The Lord replied, "To you it's the 92nd time, but to me it's the first time!" The Lord showed him that all those other times were forgotten because they were washed clean by the blood of Jesus!

Now that isn't an excuse for continual sin, but if you have missed it, there is forgiveness!

Source: Get Over It: Overcoming the Enemy's Strategy of Offense
by Kate McVeigh.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers