What we are today is a result of our choices of our past experiences. Some, if not all, of our choices and personal mindset today are still being influenced or dominated by our past. Some people cannot move on and experience meaningful living because of their unwanted past. For us to experience fruitful and meaningful living we must learn to get rid of them. God has provided us a way to be free from them.
Truths about Life.
• Unwanted past can be a: Failure in life; Offenses done to us; Our family background; Personal sin.
• When we are unable to deal with our unwanted past, we live in constant Shame, Bitterness and Fear.
• People who are motivated by these have a tendency to cover them by: Performance ; Seeking Approval; Blaming Others; Material Possessions; Seeking Pity from others
Performance- “ Meeting certain things to feel good about ourselves “ overcoming pain and significance based in performance
Fear - Failure
Approval Addict- “Be approved by others to feel good about self “overcoming pain and significance based on pleasing others “
Fear - Rejection
Blame Game – “Blame others and find fault on others” - Significance based on Projection
Fear - Punishment
I must have that syndrome- overcoming pain and significance based on material things and outside appearance
Fear- Lack
Poor me Outlook - “ I am hopeless, I can’t change “-overcoming pain and significance e based on receiving pity from others “
Fear- Lose handle
• Only God through Jesus Christ and His timeless principles can set us free from shame. No human means of covering can take it away.
Breaking Free from our past happens when we…
A. Repent, Receive and release forgiveness.
(Isaiah 1:18; Matthew 18:21-35; Acts 3:19; 2 Corinthians 7:10)
• If our painful past is a sin that we have done, all we have to do is seek forgiveness from God and believe that He is more than willing to give it to us.
• If the unwanted past is caused by the reccurent remembering of the offense we must choose to release forgiveness for our own peace.
• Sometimes we need also to forgive ourselves.
B. Receive comfort from God by surrendering our hurts to Him.
Matthew 11
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”
• Verbally sharing out our pain to others or to professional psychiatrist can be helpful but the help they can offer will still be limited. But if we humbly seek the comfort of God, he is more than willing and more able to comfort us because He created us and knows us even more than we know orselves.
1 Samuel 30
1 David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, 2 and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.
3 When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
4 So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. 5 David’s two wives had been captured-- Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
7 David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and none of them got away, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and fled. 18 David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. 19 Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.
• King David ,when he failed his men when their enemies took their wives and children that even led them to think of harming him, chose to encourage himself in the Lord instead of punishing himself. After that he was able to pick up himself to recover that which he lost.
• When we choose to surrender our pains to God and let Him comfort us, He gives us strenght and wisdom to move beyond our failures and pains.
C. Surrender to God’s process of restoration.( John 9:6)
• When God restores us, we must be willing to have it His way. Sometimes He does things not the way we want it to happen. We must trust and obey God just like a patient who must follow doctor’s prescription for healing to happen. The same way with God. He has given us Biblical principles as precription for our restoration.
D. Don’t dwell in the past but think ( pursue ) of the possibilities that God has prepared for you and view our past as tools for growth.
Proverbs 24:16 16 for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.
Phil. 3:13-14 No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
• One preacher said when the bible tells us to forget about our past it did say that we must erase it from our minds because it will always be there to remond us. However it does mean that we must not allow our past to control us by focusing on the great things that God has prepared for us.
• We must view our past as tools for improvement rather than allowing them to destory us. Thomas Edison, when he failed the 800th time while inventing the bulb was told by his assistant, “sir we have failed 800th times already”, Thomas answered, “no we haven’t failed 800 times, we have learned 800 things not to do”.
• We must choose to view these painful past as opportunities for growth.
E. Focus persistently on our identity in Jesus Christ regardless of our feelings about ourselves.
2 Corinthians 5
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Romans 12
2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.
• We must not allow our past to dictate or make a final statement of who we are because life is a process and a journey. We must not always agree the feelings that we have for ourselves but rather renew our minds regrding who we are in Christ.
• In Matthew 16:15-18, before Peter betrayed Jesus, He change his name Simon ( which means REED, or easily swayed by the wind) into Peter (little rock, which indicates not easily moved). When we give our lives to God, He knows that we will experience failure or disappointments, but these will not change His view on us and ruin His plan for our lives. His plan of making us into a great person is far greater than our past and our failures. God is not limited by our past.
