When you receive Christ, you become a new person in Him. The “old you” is dead and the “new you” lives. You can spend your whole life trying to relive and fix the past. This will leave you filled with so much guilt, condemnation, regret and dead works.
I often see people walking around dragging their old baggage.
Every now and then, they stop and open up a suitcase and begin to relive their hurts and disappointments. They live in unbelief in the love of God. This results in a continuous cycle of counseling to deal with the past. Unfortunately, they never cut the rope and let their past die.
God doesn’t want to fix you, rather He wants to crucify you and your past. He wants to give you a total and complete victory in Christ. The Good News is the “old you” died on the Cross in Christ and the “new you” rose triumphantly out of the grave with Jesus. It is finished! The old you is dead with all of its hurts, pains, disappointments, regrets and condemnation. The answer to your problems is found in believing the Gospel.
The Gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul puts it this way, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…” Philippians 3:13
If you are in Christ, you have such an awesome future! You are going to Heaven! Forever with Jesus! You are a success!
Paul teaches the Colossians church how to walk out the Gospel in their daily lives:
“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Colossians 3:3-10
You don’t have to play Satan’s repair games, running around like “Fix It Felix” trying to fix your life with a magic hammer. Hey, that’s like trying to plug a leak on a sinking boat! Rather believe God’s love for you and that He has given you a new life in Christ. This new life is perfect and complete. If you ever see sin or the old life rising up again with all of its regrets – put it to death immediately! Believe God’s love. This is how you keep yourself in the love of God or abide in Christ by believing the Gospel. This is what Jesus means by taking up your Cross daily and following Jesus.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Image Credit:Sunny studio-Igor Yaruta