Gain Freedom From Your Past

Who among us hasn't wished they could get in a time machine and go back in history to do something differently?  Moments of regret have plagued my life from my role in a high school musical not being good enough, to not supporting my husband's original career choice, to moments of raising my children.  Add on top of that my failures at personal holiness and you have a recipe for stress and a lack of joy in life.  Although I wasn't living in secret sin, I had shame over the sins that were present and discouragement over who I wasn't.

It's hard to rule and reign in life as God intended when you are carrying around the heavy baggage of your past.  Being weighed down by shame, condemnation, fear, disappointment, and discouragement is the power of sin.  And although your sinful past really happened, there is a greater reality: your forgiveness in Jesus.  

Oh, I always knew that if I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins, they were forgiven.  But the head knowledge of that never seemed to have much impact on my daily life.  

When you spend time rehashing your past - your sins and your regrets - over and over in your mind you are empowering satan in your life.  You are agreeing with him.  He is our accuser, but Jesus is our defender. (See Revelation 12:10 & 1 John 2:1) When you empower satan he will devour you.

We don't deny or forget our past, but we need to learn to see it the way God sees it - forgiven.  Agreeing with God will empower us.  It will free us.  We'll be "free to reign." Agreeing with God is the focus and action of faith.  It enables us to step into the power of truth which sets us free.  John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 17:17 "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."  (Sanctify means becoming more like Jesus.  It is a process.) When we see what God says about us in His Word, that is truth and that is what will set us free.  

Let's look at Abraham's wife Sarah, to see what God says about her in His word.  In Genesis 18:12 we read, "Therefore Sarah laughed to herself, saying, 'After I am so old and my lord is old also, shall I have pleasure?'"  This was Sarah's response to hearing the news that she and Abe were going to finally have a child in their old age.  The Hebrew word for laughed used here does not mean a little chuckle, but a mocking laugh at what God has said.  Mocking God!? Talk about sin!  That's gotta be one of the defining moments in her history that God remembers, right?  

Let's read how God remembers that event in Hebrews 11:11 "By faith Sarah herself also received the ability to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised."  At some point, Sarah got on board and agreed with what God said about her, repented (changed her mind on the matter and went a different way), and received the promise.  She reigned over barrenness.  And God rewrote her history.  He changed her history into His - story.  His story of faithfulness, of power, of love and forgiveness. 

That can be your story too.  Your destiny no longer has to be defined by your past abuse, teenage pregnancy, addictions, divorce, job loss, failures and disappointments. God can take your scars and rearrange them into something beautiful like the etching on fine crystal.  The blood of Jesus allows a re-write of your past.

All you have to do is dig into God's word to see who He says you are and then agree with Him and he'll rewrite your history.  Here's one verse to get you started...2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

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