The Past Can Cripple You!

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12

Corrie ten Boom, a wonderful woman of God, once made this statement: “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.”

Now, when we sin, we need to ask God to forgive us. But God has a big eraser. He forgives our sin and forgets it. He said, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34 NKJV).

When we’re running the race of life, we shouldn’t look back. Paul wrote, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Philippians 3:13 NKJV).

Do you have the assurance that your sin is forgiven? Or, are you dragging around a heavy load of guilt that you face every day? You can have your sin forgiven, and you can have your sin forgotten. God wants to do that for you. Do you want to get rid of your guilt? Then you need to ask Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead three days later, to come and live inside your heart and life. Yet Jesus warned His disciples, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32 NKJV). He was referring to the Old Testament story in Genesis about Lot and his family, whom God delivered from Sodom and Gomorrah. An angel told them not to look back when the judgment of God came upon the city.

But as Lot and his family were fleeing Sodom, Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt (see Genesis 19:26).

Sometimes we look back too. Old sins cripple us. Or, we’re simply living in the past. Don’t drag around the excess weight of past sins, and don’t look back. Leave your past behind you. Live in the present, and move forward toward the future.