How To Get Past Your Past
To get past our past, we often try to self-medicate, motivate, and meditate. Rather than work to make us better, God's intention is to make us new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV //
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT //
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
If you don’t let your past DIE, it won’t let you LIVE.
1. In Christ, I am completely FORGIVEN.
Romans 8:1 // Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
John 8:1-11 // ... Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
2. In Christ I am intrinsically VALUABLE.
Romans 5:6-11 // When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
The value of my life is not the mess I made, but the price Christ paid.
3. In Christ, I am unconditionally LOVED.
1 John 4:10 // This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
