Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Life (06/15/06)
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TITLE: Is Your Past a Guide Post, or A Hitching Post? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kimberly Jones
06/20/06 -
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We all have a past some more tainted than others, none the less it is a past. What I want us to think about is what part does are past play in the decisions and choices we make now? Are we stuck, for fear of messing up again? Are we allowing ourselves to spiral down, into a dark abyss and feeling that life is hopeless? Are we pursuing one self destructive thing after another (self medicating)? Or are we letting God mend our broken places and use our past as a testimony to Him?
The things in our past should not hinder us from living the life that God has for us, look at David, he committed adultery and murder to cover up an affair. Yet when the sin was brought to his attention he confessed, repented and allowed God to restore their relationship. We cannot let our hearts get bogged down with what we did, we learn from it and go on. Is it easy “not all the time,” but we can get past it just as David did praying the prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. Then letting God mend and clean us up. Still not convinced look at Peter he denied Christ three times, reacted in anger and cut off a soldier’s ear, God restored Peter, Mary Magdalene demon possessed saved from her life, woman caught in the very act of adultery forgiven and set free. See life can only hold us down if we let it. The devil and worst of all, we ourselves condemn and confine ourselves to a life of torment, heartache and pain. God never intended us to carry those burdens, that is why He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross, becoming the ultimate and only sacrifice that we would need.
Romans 8:1 (KJV) says “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” When we come to Christ, confessing our sin, then repenting of it (turning away from it) it is no longer there, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 (KJV).” Romans 8:1 tells us if we “…walk not after the [our] flesh, but after the spirit,” then the condemnation is gone, we are set free, but if we give into our flesh then we are condemned to die. It all comes back to are we letting our past move us forward? Or hold us back? Keeping us trapped, searching for the one thing that will keep us happy and satisfied? Will we slip along the way “yes,” will we pick up an old habit, “yes.” But do we have to let that take us away from God “no!”
God set us free when His son was condemned to die on a tree. Let go of the past, use it as a testimony, and move forward. God forgives you so now you forgive you.
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