Looking at our past is not always a fun experience. However, it is often times a humbling one. I remember times in my life where I was lead astray, where I lead myself astray, and where I lead others astray. Such experiences are haunting to look back at; specifically, the experiences where I lead others astray. "I could have ministered to them" I say to myself, "I could have changed them but I missed my opportunity." Do you have these thoughts as well? The times when you look at your past and it makes you feel as though you don't deserve to be who you are today? Maybe you look at your past and ignore it. Maybe you look at your past and live it. Or maybe you look at your past and learn from it. We all have lessons to learn from our past, from our mistakes, from our short-comings. We are often shaped by God through our failures.
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." -- Galatians 1:4
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -- 2 Corinthians 5:17
"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." -- Romans 7:24-25
Many of us, before we came to Christ (or perhaps you haven't yet come to Christ) lead sinful lives. Whether those lives were sinful by drunkenness and sexual immorality, or whether they were sinful by cussing and not serving the will of God, it was still sinful because our eyes were not set on God. It is one thing to not be capable to serve God at a certain point in your life, and lead others away from him, but it is another thing to have your eyes set on God and openly lead others away from him. As I told my testimony to a group of friends today, I talked of the shame I carried for leading people away from Christ in my days of serving a lukewarm Christianity. One friend said in response to me "you can't be ashamed for not talking to them about Christ and not leading them towards Christ because at that point in your life, you were not capable of helping them in there relationship with Christ." I couldn't help them because I hadn't been helped. I first needed to get over my sickness before I could help someone else who was sick.
So how do we get over our sickness? How do we go from sin to Christ? How do we change from depravity to perfection? The answer is Jesus. By the blood of Christ, we are changed. Once we have been changed by the blood of our savior, then we can focus our energy on helping others to understand how we were saved from ourselves and how they can be as well. However, never do we save anyone, only the Holy Spirit does that by entering into their life. We are called to tell our story, we are not called to save people. God will take care of that through our words. Only once I'm a new creation, will I be able to adequately share Christ with others.
It took me a long time to realize that I am literally not the same person I was, the Bible says I am a "new creation" in Christ! That's right, that person who committed those sins, who lead those people astray in their insecurity, depravity, and sickness, is not me, that person no longer exists. They are dead, and I am joyous that they are. I have been reborn, I have changed, "the old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
Once we have come to the point where we serve Christ whole-heartedly, we than have not only an obligation, but a desire and privilege, to tell others that we were saved by Jesus. If someone jumped in front of a bullet to save your life, would you tell their story? Would you proclaim it to the ends of the earth? Would you fulfill whatever that savior wanted from you? By the death of Jesus, we have been saved; by the blood of Jesus, we have been redeemed; by the grace of God, others will too.
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