🤎🍂🎞️📀Our anchor scripture reveals one of the pillars of St. Paul’s massive success story as an apostle. He made it his personal life principle and practice to forget the accomplishments as well as the challenges of the past and focus on the things ahead that needed to be done. This is wisdom.
🤎🍂🎞️📀EMBRACING THE PAULINE PRINCIPLE
In marriage, you and your spouse also need to embrace and practice this great principle, especially regarding the challenges, hurts, pains, and disappointments you will experience from each other as you travel the long road to your final marital destination.
🤎🍂🎞️📀MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY
Marriage is a journey. And this journey is, in a sense, like driving a car, riding a horse, or running on foot. In each of these modes of transportation, one thing is essential: you must focus strictly on the way ahead of you or risk disaster — sometimes a very ghastly one.
Anyone driving a car must fix his eyes on the road ahead. Anyone riding a horse must strictly focus on the way before him. Similarly, a man running must fix his eyes on the track, road, or path on which he is running. All this is because looking back will invariably lead to an accident in one form or another. Why? Because, as humans, we were not designed to be in motion and still look backward at the same time. That is why no human being has eyes at the back of the head.
🤎🍂🎞️📀YOU’RE IN LOVE BUT IMPERFECT
The matrimonial journey is a long one, and in the course of it, either of you can make a mistake, miss the mark, overreact, or unintentionally show a mark of disloyalty. Why? Because even though you love and cherish each other, you are imperfect and fallible.
And when either of you falters, slips, or makes a clumsy mistake, what are you to do? Certainly not sweep the issue under the carpet. Rather, address it squarely with wisdom, maturity, love, and mutual understanding. Let the guilty spouse see their fault, humbly accept the blame, and apologise. Let the offended partner be large-hearted enough to accept the apology and wholeheartedly forgive.
Thereafter, let the issue be buried from view, and continue your journey as though it never happened. That is how to apply the Pauline principle of “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” With this principle, you will walk merrily together in oneness and agreement until God finally separates you by death.
🤎🍂🎞️📀THE DEVIL WILL COME AGAIN AND AGAIN
But the truth and reality are these: the devil will work round the clock to remind each of you, time and again, of that mistake, that error, or that moral lapse from many years ago which you have long resolved and put far behind you. What is his intention? It is to plant bitterness, resentment, and acrimony.
🤎🍂🎞️📀WHEN THE ENEMY EXHUMED THE PAST
A pastor travelled to visit an old schoolmate. When he arrived at his friend’s home, he found the atmosphere cold and tense. Noticing the unusual iciness in the home, he wanted to know what the matter was.
It was then that the wife opened up and told him that it was all because the husband had suddenly become unhappy about the wayward life she had lived as a spinster. But she had not hidden her past from him when he proposed marriage to her. She had been sincere and told him how dark her moral past was, and he willingly accepted to marry her despite it.
Why the sudden feelings of sadness about her past long after they were married? It is the doing of Satan, the devil.
🤎🍂🎞️📀WALK PAST YOUR SPOUSE’S PAST WHENEVER THE DEVIL SETS IT IN YOUR PATH
God’s great joy is to join spouses together. He does not look at anyone’s past and disqualify them when their mate is willing to tie the knot.
But, on the other hand, the devil is determined to unjoin what God has joined. To achieve this, he does not mind bringing into the vicinity of that couple some of the men who had slept with the wife during her spinsterhood. What for? To provoke the husband.
And if it is the man who had been wayward, the devil will place provocative reminders or proofs to stir bitterness in the wife.
🤎🍂🎞️📀REMEMBER OUR PAULINE PRINCIPLE
Whenever you encounter any of these satanic arrangements, remember the Pauline principle we are examining today: “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.”
Believe it, confess it, and obey it.
Never look back at the things you have “buried.” Never give the devil your attention or listening ear. Snub him! Resist him, and he will flee from you.
Walk hand in hand to the devil’s chagrin!
🤎🍂🎞️📀CONCLUSION
Always look ahead! Reach forward to accomplish new things! Yes, go on and conquer new territories and possess all that God has for you as a couple. You are a divinely joined pair with God’s unlimited backing!🍂
💕❤️ Tonight’s Bedroom Assignment:
Reread this devotional together just before bedtime and discuss it with an open and sincere heart.
📚📖✒️ Quotes For Reflection:
“Every marriage has a glorious future, and that is why you must not walk by sight. Don’t let the challenges in the life of your spouse today lead you to write them off and walk out of the marriage. Stay the course, and you will be shocked at what will begin to unfold in your home.”(Anselm Ahman. Lovebirds’ Devotional, April 26, 2026)
✝️ Altar Call:
Jesus Christ is calling you! Come to Him today and be saved!
🌡️⚗️ Scientific Info To Boost Your Marriage:
“The chronic anger and hostility tied to unforgiveness keep the body in a constant state of physiological alert. According to research from Johns Hopkins Medicine, this stress response spikes heart rate and blood pressure, elevating the long-term risk of heart disease.”
🎸🎷🪘 Anointed Music Section