In Philippians 3:13-14, the apostle Paul, by inspiration of God, gave us a three point plan for living the Christian life. One of the greatest weights that Christians have to leam to lay aside is our past sinful lives and missed opportunities. Paul said, "..but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,.." Was Paul able to forget his past life? No, he was not, but what he meant was that he did not allow his past life as a persecutor of Christians to stop him from being obedient to the gospel now.
Next, Paul said, he was, "reaching forth unto those things which are before.' Paul exhorted us as Christians not to live in the past, but to push forward. We need to be reaching, which means putting forth an effort, to strive for the things that are before us. Live each day for Christ and do all that you can for Him each day of your life (Galatians 2:20). When we do this we have less to weigh us down from the past.
When we do these two things, forgetting the past and reaching forward, then we can as Paul put it, press on toward the mark for the prize. We are to be striving for the goal of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This should be our focal point, the point for which we are to be pressing