By Pastor Don Parker
Sin, a three letter word that no body likes to talk about; yet the Bible tells us that we are all sinners. (Romans 3:23) Nobody is perfect. We have all come up short. We have all made poor decisions.
Many people believe they have too much sin for Jesus to ever forgive. Christians sometimes believe that because of their past, Jesus will never use them to do His work. The Bible shows us that God used people that had a past. They had sin in their lives. They had failures. They made some poor choices. But because of the power and grace of God, they had victory over sin. God wants to help you overcome your past.
However, often we carry around all those mistakes, all those poor decisions, all those regrets, all that guilt, all that sin, all that baggage and it weighs us down like carrying around bricks in a backpack. Guilt weighs us down and makes us believe that God will never forgive us. Instead of giving it to Jesus, we carry around all that guilt. We often feel as David did when he said this in Psalm 38:4“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.”
How do we get past our past and drop that baggage at the feet of Jesus who forgives sin. The first thing we need to understand is that our biggest sins are not too big for God’s grace.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Our part is to confess our sin, God’s part and God’s promise is that He will forgive us of all our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We need to understand that the devil tries to keep us wrapped up in guilt by making us believe that we are our sins. What we need to understand is that sin is an event. We are all sinners by what we do, but our sin is not who we are. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” When you put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a new person. The old life is gone and a new life begins at that very moment. All that baggage, all those poor decisions and bad choices, all that hurt, all the pain, all the regrets, all the secrets, all that guilt, all that sin, God forgives and wipes the slate clean! You don’t have to carry it around any longer.
If you are carrying around the baggage of your past, drop it at the feet of Jesus. Right were you are you can talk to God and say something like this, “God, it’s me. I come Lord bringing all this stuff, all these poor decisions and bad choices, all the regrets, all the hurt, all the pain, all the addictions, all the broken relationships, all this guilt, all this sin, all this stuff, and I lay it all at the foot of the cross and say God forgive me of my sins. I repent of my sins and ask you Lord to forgive me and wipe away all my sins and make me a new person. Thank you for saving me Lord and help me leave this baggage right here and not carry my past around any longer. Because of you Lord, I am forgiven, and my past, is past.
You can’t change your past, but Jesus Christ can change your future. Jesus Christ wants to help you in this life and change your life for all eternity.
Paul writes in Philippians 3:12-14 “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Paul says, I press on and I forget the past, and with Jesus you can too!
