Don't be tempted!
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
SUMMARY: When we surrender to Christ, He not only gives us hope for the future but also radically changes our past. However, many Christians struggle to let go of their past and continue to blame themselves for their mistakes. This is unnecessary because Christ erased our past and made us new creations. Our new past is in what Christ did on the Cross, where our old selves were crucified forever. We should focus on the future and strive towards holiness, forgetting what is behind us. We are new vessels for God's purpose and should embrace it fully.
When we come to the feet of Christ and surrender to Him, faith immediately awakens in us a sense of vitality and hope in the new future, but it is seldom said that, by experiencing the new spiritual birth, Christ radically changes our past. . The hope of eternal life, from the perspective of saving faith in Jesus Christ, definitely opens the understanding that makes us begin to understand the saving God of our lives. And where did the past in which we were “dead in our crimes and sins”? Frequently recalling the past and bringing it into the present of new life in Christ can cause the new convert - and Christians who have not yet understood it - confusion and doubt. It will always be like a shadow that tries to obscure the light of Salvation and blurs the joy and contentment that the miracle of genuine conversion produces.
Many Christians, old and new, have not yet overcome their past before knowing Christ and often, in their minds and in their actions, the ghost of Adam appears offering them a new bite of the forbidden apple as if wanting to make them accomplices of original sin because of the one that it was necessary for a Savior to come into the world. It is no longer Eve, or Adam, not even the serpent, who are to blame for our downfalls as Christians, but rather the unfortunate vocation that we all have to blame someone for our stumbling blocks in the Christian life. The cause, almost always, lies in not recognizing His lordship over our lives, not understanding that when He intervenes in my life, He completely erases my sinful ballast from the past and I resurface, from the waters of His Spirit, converted into a new creature. In Christ, that story of "passing the ball of blame" to the other, is over. It is over because Christ gave us the same day of our spiritual birth, a new past, a present of grace and a future of glory.
Living the Christian life blaming yourself for mistakes made in the past denotes clear evidence that there was a new birth with the help of forceps. I express it in this way only to illustrate the idea, not literally, and I do it with the purpose of meditating that it makes no sense to self-condemn ourselves when all our past was exterminated at the root by the divine intervention of the one who made us his children. God speaks to us today and says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8: 1 a)
But where is the new past? Well, if Christ erased your past - everything you were and what you did before you met him - because he made you a new creation, then your new past is in what Christ did on the Cross; There the old man that we were was crucified forever with his wickedness, absurdities and perversities, so that what you were, has already died, you are a spiritual being that yearns to glorify God in everything you do. God reminds us: “Focus your attention on things above, not on things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3: 2-3 underlined by the author). Yes, it is a glorious affirmation to know that that death of my life before Christ took away my dark past and now my life is in Christ by the will of God. My past was left on the cross, my Christian life now allows me to focus forward, rest in the hope of a better future in obedience and holiness, show the world that I am a new spiritual being who has set his sights on Christ. Paul used to say: “Brothers, I don't think that I myself have already achieved it. Rather, I do one thing: forgetting what is behind and striving to achieve what is ahead. " (Philippians 3:13 author's underlining).
Dear brothers and sisters, I invite you to reflection and prayer. Don't let the evil one tempt you to reject the truth of your dead past forever. Your old past was erased so that you can fully feel His presence in your life today. You are a new vessel for the new wine of God that gives you purpose and convictions that transcend the eternal. Do not hesitate. He promised.
God bless you!
Many Christians, old and new, have not yet overcome their past before knowing Christ and often, in their minds and in their actions, the ghost of Adam appears offering them a new bite of the forbidden apple as if wanting to make them accomplices of original sin because of the one that it was necessary for a Savior to come into the world. It is no longer Eve, or Adam, not even the serpent, who are to blame for our downfalls as Christians, but rather the unfortunate vocation that we all have to blame someone for our stumbling blocks in the Christian life. The cause, almost always, lies in not recognizing His lordship over our lives, not understanding that when He intervenes in my life, He completely erases my sinful ballast from the past and I resurface, from the waters of His Spirit, converted into a new creature. In Christ, that story of "passing the ball of blame" to the other, is over. It is over because Christ gave us the same day of our spiritual birth, a new past, a present of grace and a future of glory.
Living the Christian life blaming yourself for mistakes made in the past denotes clear evidence that there was a new birth with the help of forceps. I express it in this way only to illustrate the idea, not literally, and I do it with the purpose of meditating that it makes no sense to self-condemn ourselves when all our past was exterminated at the root by the divine intervention of the one who made us his children. God speaks to us today and says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8: 1 a)
But where is the new past? Well, if Christ erased your past - everything you were and what you did before you met him - because he made you a new creation, then your new past is in what Christ did on the Cross; There the old man that we were was crucified forever with his wickedness, absurdities and perversities, so that what you were, has already died, you are a spiritual being that yearns to glorify God in everything you do. God reminds us: “Focus your attention on things above, not on things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3: 2-3 underlined by the author). Yes, it is a glorious affirmation to know that that death of my life before Christ took away my dark past and now my life is in Christ by the will of God. My past was left on the cross, my Christian life now allows me to focus forward, rest in the hope of a better future in obedience and holiness, show the world that I am a new spiritual being who has set his sights on Christ. Paul used to say: “Brothers, I don't think that I myself have already achieved it. Rather, I do one thing: forgetting what is behind and striving to achieve what is ahead. " (Philippians 3:13 author's underlining).
Dear brothers and sisters, I invite you to reflection and prayer. Don't let the evil one tempt you to reject the truth of your dead past forever. Your old past was erased so that you can fully feel His presence in your life today. You are a new vessel for the new wine of God that gives you purpose and convictions that transcend the eternal. Do not hesitate. He promised.
God bless you!
