We all have pasts. Every single person has a past. We don't live for the past, we live for the right now,and for the future we have in Jesus.Have you ever been teaching another not to walk the same path you did, not to make the same mistakes you did? Why is it that if we are teaching someone about Jesus, and walking with Him, they always bring up your past? I had a young person say to me today, you can't tell me how to live my life, look at the way you lived when you were my age. I sat, with tears ready to flow, and shared, that I didn't know Jesus when I was young, I wasn't living for Him. This young person still didn't get it. He thinks just because we have pasts we can't tell what is right now. This is just so wrong. I have shared my past with many youth, I have shared with tears and emotion. I shared because I didn't want them to make the same mistakes I did,to walk a different path, a different road, so they can walk with Christ now. Live differently, act differently, and love differently. Jesus forgave me of my past. With Him I have become a new person. The old is washed away and I now wear the new. I struggle from day to day just like any other, I fall, but Christ picks me up and wipes me clean,and I stand again. We want to protect others from walking the roads we did. If I was driving to a destination, and the road was winding, and there was a cliff ahead,I would want someone to share with me,what was up ahead. I would want them to point the way for me to go. To guide me to Christ. God gives second chances when we ask Him into our hearts. He loves us for who we are. Why is it so hard for others to forget our pasts and not have forgiveness. We cannot take peices of the bible as a buffet table, and leave the parts we don't like. We either take all or nothing. There is not a scripture that tells us to only take what we need and leave behind the rest. We can't just take away from the bible what fits our lifestyle. Last night I was watching this late night preacher. He was speaking to a crowd and said," We have a loving God,not a judging God." I don't know what bible he has been reading,but for our sins we have consequences. God is a loving God,but He is also a just God. Some of my sins from my past I still carry today,and will for the rest of my life. But I know I am forgiven,I know I am loved. We want others to follow God's example, not to have to learn the hard way with God's correction. What is better.To learn from God's word and be blessed living for Him,or learn from making huge mistakes and having God teach us and correct us from our sin? I take a stand for Christ and His ways because I love Him, and because He is my God and Savior. If we don't speak the truth and take a stand are we really loving God? Our pasts are behind us, and God is right here in our present, and giving us a future with Him. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,But whoever walks wisely will be delivered." Proverbs 28:26 "Listen to counsel and receive instruction, That you may be wise in your latter days." Proverbs 19:20 "How much better to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver." Proverbs 16:16 "He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed." Proverbs 13:20 God gives us much scripture about wisdom and following His ways. I don't have to live in my past, so why should I let others live there and bring judgment? Why allow satan to attack through the words of others? We shouldn't, we have our life in Jesus, and our pasts are behind us. If another comes to you and says," How can you be a christian, when you used to do all these things?" You tell them because Jesus' love covered my sins with His blood. If I continue to dwell in my past,then what Jesus did for me was all in vain,and of no account. Jesus paid it all, He paid in full what I so deserve,what we all deserve as sinners. Live for today and do not allow your past to haunt you,or allow others to enter into your past,and bring it forward. What is behind is behind, and I am so looking forward to what Jesus has for me...
