Don’t let your past rob your future
Our ‘before’, our ‘history’, and our ‘past’ are often things that we see as being barriers to God using us; or, we consider them to be things that disqualify us, or stop us, from being used by Him, or being blessed by Him.
But, these are not barriers to God, sadly these are often just barriers in our own mind or thinking, ungodly beliefs that we have created as truths that stop us moving forward when in fact they are just damaging lies.
Our ‘before’ is not a barrier to God, these are just the blocks that the enemy has placed in our lives and circumstances that he uses to try and stop the plans, purposes and character of God being formed in us – these are the enemies works – and nothing that the enemy does can ever stop the work of God, or His grace, being extended to us. Our past choices do not derail His love or purposes, nor do they disqualify us from coming into the fullness of His love.
God doesn’t see our ‘history’, or our ‘before’ as an obstacle – we are just broken versions of ourselves – When God looks at us He sees the eternal plans and purposes for which we were created, and He desires these to be accomplished. So, He uses His grace and mercies to get us back on track, despite our ‘before’. God’s desire is to get us to where we need to be – and because we are fearfully and wonderfully made He uses forgiveness won through the blood of Jesus to bring us close, and to take us forward.
Sadly, a lot of us have been taught, or conditioned to believe, that God is all about punishing and judging our failings and our sins, when in reality He moves towards us out of His great love for us and not out of our performance for Him. His greatest desire is for us to accomplish the purposes for which we were designed. So, yes, He overlooks and covers over our sins because of love, and instead He focuses on building relationship with us and our recovery. For His will is done when we walk in the purposes He has made us for.
This means that we should be happy to be put back on track, and give us the incentive to put our ‘before’ behind us. God chooses to forget the things we confess to Him, we should do the same and allow them to be forgotten. We have been made for more than what we have experienced this far.
The apostle Paul encourages us in the Letter to the Philippians 3:12-14, he says, ‘but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me…one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the heavenly prize of the call of God in Christ Jesus’.
We may not have the best of ‘before’s’, but we all have access to the best ‘after’s’, to look forward to. So, do that now, forget the past, let it go, and let God take you into the fullness of the restored life that he wants you to have and enjoy.
Focus and reflect
- Thank God that He knows you by name, and that He created you for His purposes and good works.
- Thank Him for redeeming you, for covering your past and making a way for you to move forward.
- Ask for help with any challenges in getting fully free, don’t try to do it all on your own. You are in a family now.
- What part of your past has God redeemed, and which are you most thankful for?
- How does ‘I called you be name, you are mine’ impact you today?
- What are you still afraid of? How does the prayer in Isaiah 43:1 affect your fear?