2 Chronicles 7:14 English Standard Version (ESV) if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

This is the Old Testament way of doing things. It was true for a time and a people who had failed to do what was necessary to maintain a good relationship with God. They would fail over and over again. The Old Testament is laden with historical examples of mankind’s failures in this relationship.

They failed to humble themselves so God had to place them in a position to be humbled against their will.

Turning to prayer and seeking God became an issue of survival. They turned from the things that got them in trouble because of the consequences of their actions. God had a history of taking them back over and over again, so they knew God would respond to their changed behavior.

That was the past.

Isaiah 43:18-19 English Standard Version

¹⁸ “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. ¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

God foretold of a new way, a future and in that prophecy He declared, “forget how it was done in the past”. Sadly some of them did not perceive it and when the time came, they could not forget the past. They could not put it behind them and do things the new way.

Is it possible that in our studies in the OT that we forget to put the things of the past away? We are not doing things the old way. We are doing a new thing.

Christ in us is something that had never happened prior to the Cross. In this new life we need to forget the former things. But our memories remain. So what is forgetting if it is not about memory?

Ephesians 4:29 English Standard Version (ESV) Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

A few days ago there was a question posed as to our understanding of righteousness and then these blogs turned to security in salvation. It could be said that the detour from righteousness to salvation was misleading and took us too far afield.

We need to put first things first. A better understanding of important issues requires that we are all listening to the Holy Spirit. He is given only to those who have placed their faith in Christ and accepted Him into their hearts. Then and only then will the Spirit of Truth speak in us.

No salvation, no truth; no truth, no understanding and with that there is strife in human effort to be right.

There are some that believe that righteousness is the act of being right. That is an incomplete definition and the truth about righteousness without the abiding presence of Christ is an exercise in vanity. Vanity in this case being emptiness as to results. We cannot accomplish unity and agreement without all of us being saved.

Philippians 3:8-10 English Standard Version

⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Having no righteousness of our own, we depend on the abiding presence of the One who is Righteous.