©2001 Charles Darby

Before we can grow in our relationship with our God we must forget the past, good or bad. There is no going back in God; we are to move forward. He gave us no armour for our backside, all the armour is for the front. Goodness and mercy is taking care of the rear (they are following us). Before the devil can get to us he must come through goodness and mercy! If we cannot move forward, at least we should stand still and wait on the Lord!

In my own walk with the Lord, some things that have happened to me may be of benefit to others, so here goes. When I was first born again and filled with the Holy Spirit I was on cloud nine. So full of peace and joy I hoped I could just stay there forever. This is what I had needed all my life!

After a while this diminished; we are not to live on cloud nine but rather we are to walk with Jesus. Sometimes this is on the mountain and sometimes in the valley. Where He leads me, I will follow. This voice in my head kept bringing up what I did before becoming a Christian, told me what terrible sins I had committed. I thought I had to agree, because I had done those things. In doing so, I was relating to the person I was before, not to the man I now was in Jesus Christ. I was going back, not forward! I was walking in unbelief and did not know it.

I would ask the Lord to forgive me over and over again but I would keep having the same tormenting thoughts. The thoughts kept telling me I did not get the real thing, that I was never going to get the real thing, that I might as well give up.

This would drive me to seek God even more. Finally, one night in prayer I said to the Lord, "from this night forward I will never doubt again. I believe you are in my life and I believe I have The Holy Spirit in me."  I said, "I thought I knew so much, but now I see I don't know anything as I should. Take me by the hand and lead me where You will." That night I began to grow up in God!

That voice, which I now know was the enemy trying to get to me through my flesh, kept running through my mind. The difference was that now I began to use the word of God against it. When I did not know the words  to use, I would just turn it into praise to God. I would agree I did those things and that is why I love the Lord so much. He bore them for me and forgave me! The devil cannot stand for us to praise God. Now the thoughts very seldom bother me. What the devil meant to destroy me was turned into a victory. To God be the glory.

This will work if we sin after we become Christians as well. The verse in 1 John is talking to Christians.

The enemy of our soul wants us to dwell in the past; God wants to live in the now, looking forward. Which one will we obey? Let's all obey God. To do so, we must let the past be buried with Christ. Jesus took care of the past and as we walk with Him, He will take care of us, step by step, the present and the future!

When He said forget the past, He did not mean we would not even think about it. Then we would have to lose our mind; that is not what He wants. He just wants us to believe He has forgiven us and the past no longer exists in His records. Thank God I am forgiven, washed in the Blood of the Lamb. I have been made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ; the word of God says so. Let us agree with the word and walk in it! I believe all of us would like to live our life over at least some part of it. Maybe something good we would like to go through again or some bad thing we would like to change. Only in Christ do we have the opportunity to have all things made new! A fresh start.

God declared all dead in sin so He could have mercy on us. Dead is dead, no one is more dead than another. We tend to think some sins are worse than others, but are they? No matter what we have done in the past God, makes all things new. I can forget, because God said I could!

Let's say I approached God's throne and said "Father forgive me for that sin I did in 1969 - 1965 - 1963, etc. God's answer would be something like this. "I have no  record of you before January 31, 1970." (That's when I was born again. You insert your spiritual date of birth instead of mine.) God would say "I have no record  of the dead. The dead cannot sin! When you believed in My Son Jesus Christ you became alive and I recorded your name in the Book of Life! That is the beginning of your record. You have sinned since then but you confessed it and I blotted it from your record. I have no record of sin against you!"

He whom The Son sets free is free indeed!

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