Yesterday we began to look at how to deal with the past. Today I would like to begin by reminding you that God has freed us from the past!
Therefore we have to reason to be bound by it.
Some of the most encouraging words in the entire Bible are:
Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the
There was a time when some of you were just like that, but now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NLT)
Do you really understand what this means? That regardless of what you were before you were saved, regardless of your prior sinful habits, you have been changed. Isn’t this tremendously encouraging to you? The Bible, which does not and cannot lie, tells you and I that we are not slaves to our past, and we have been freed from the power sin had over us in the past.
Obviously, we all still sin as believers, we are not yet perfected. This is part of the progressive nature of the maturing of the believer. The understanding that although we still sin, our relationship to those sinful habits is now different.
Now you are free from sin, your old master, and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness. Romans 6:18 (NLT)
Sometimes women tell me they have done that and they still struggle with guilt. Can I urge you not to do that? Don’t wallow in the confessed past. Since God has forgiven you in Christ for your past sin stop attempting to add to His complete sacrifice!
Christ has opened the cell door and told you to go free but for reasons of your own, you are choosing to remain in the cell as a prisoner! This is what you are effectively doing as you regularly go back and remind yourself of sins you have committed in the past.
You have confessed them- stop beating yourself over the head with them. Do you see how moody you are? Do you realize that this makes you discouraged and depressed? Stop it! :)