Matthew 10 : 37 - 39, He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. NKJV
The life that you and I have lived according to the pleasures of this world wasn't the life that God offered us in Genesis 1: 26 -28. It is however, the life that Adam and Eve chose when Satan tempted Eve with sin. In order for us to truly experience the LIFE that God intended for us to have in the earth (not heaven), it has to be lived by faith and not according to lusts. In other words, we must not choose as Eve did when she fulfilled her own desire and will and not God's will in the garden of His provision.
Since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, we all have a past that must be overcome in order to embrace our new life in Christ. When Adam and Eve chose to sin instead of living their life based on God's plan, it caused all of mankind to be blinded by the carnal mind. The carnal mind simply bases decisions on how they will affect us for the moment with NO thought for our future. The mind of Christ or the spiritual mind that Paul teaches about in Romans 8 operates on the basis of faith and not pleasure. Now that we're in Christ, we can't live the same way that we did in the world and expect to get a different outcome. We can't be a Christian and have the right to continue to live according to fleshly desires or worldly pleasures. This is why we're told, in Hebrews 11, that without faith, we can't please the Father.
If you truly want to separate yourself from the heartaches, setbacks, and failures of your past, then you must submit your will to the Father's will and crucify the flesh (or carnal nature). If we continue in Christ, there will come a time in our walk where we must decide God's way or our way. This is what Jesus is addressing in today's scripture. In Christ, God has great plans to prosper you and give you a bright future. It's bright and hopeful, because HE will be with you in it leading the way. Our past is dark, because it was based on "our" ways instead of "God's" ways.
I want to leave you with an example of someone who chose, while living in luxury, to leave his past behind and to suffer with his brethren by faith. Hebrews 11 : 24 - 27, By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. NKJV
It doesn't sound very inviting for a person to leave a palace, with all of its pleasures and to choose to suffer affliction with his own people, but that's exactly what Moses did, and what we must do if we truly desire to be free from our past. In the flesh, Moses was known and remembered as a murderer; but, in the spirit, after suffering for a while, He became known and remembered in Egypt and the world as God's man of deliverance and power. Moses is known as the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. He was a man that found favor in God's sight and was allowed to talk with God face to face. Wow!
You and I must make that same choice... if we haven't already. By faith, we must be willing to lay down both the pleasures and the regrets of our past and embrace a new future in Christ. If you have been a slave to sin's pleasure or brought into captivity and bondage to its wages, then "right now" you can have a new beginning. Like Moses, lay it all on the altar and choose to follow Jesus. The Lord has promised to give us a hope and a future when we turn to Him with our whole heart.
Leaving My Past Behind,
Pastor Asa
No comments:
Post a Comment