Letting Go of Your Past

Once you become saved and born again, the Bible tells us that we have now become new creations in Jesus Christ. All things have been made new. Our slates are now wiped clean and we now have a brand new start in this life if we are willing to properly work with the Lord in allowing Him to raise us up in His grace, knowledge and power.

As I have stated numerous times in my other articles - after you get saved, the next step is to come into a full surrender of your entire life over to God the Father so that He can start to lead you into the path and call that He has set up for you to follow in this life. Jesus must now become Lord over your life, not just your Savior. Making Jesus Lord over your life means that you will now turn the reigns of your life over to Him for Him to handle. You are no longer your own. You now belong to God and Jesus and no one else!

Once you enter into this full surrender of you and your entire life with the Lord - one of the first things God may do with many of you is to take you back in your past so that He can begin to clean up any wreckage that may have occurred. Before you can really move forward into your call and destiny that God has in store for you in this life - you may have to deal with some specific things that may have occurred in your past.

Too many Christians are bound up in their past - and as a result they cannot fully live in their present.

Before you can really start to move forward in your walk and call with God - you will have to learn how to let the past go. Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul make two very profound and life altering statements in the two verses I will give you in this article. For many, these two specific verses will determine whether or not you will be able to fully succeed in your call for God in this life.

As a result of the curse of Adam and Eve that is still operating on this earth - we are all forced to be born into a fallen and imperfect world. We are all stuck having to deal with the reality of pure evil in our lives through the activity of demonic spirits and bad and evil people who have chosen with their own free wills to live this life out on the dark side. As a result - all of us will get hurt to some degree in this life. There is no getting around it. And for many, some of these hurts will be extreme and traumatic.

Every minute of every day someone is getting murdered, robbed, raped, abused and abducted. We literally can't go one day without some of this kind of activity being reported on our local news channels.

Jesus Himself said that a certain amount of tribulation would come our way and that we will all have to put up with a certain amount of persecution in this life. That is why the Bible tells us that we have to become soldiers of Jesus Christ and that we have to learn how to put on and apply the armor of God for our lives.

We have all been born into a war zone as a result of the curse of Adam and Eve - and unless you learn how to walk in the power and anointing of God for your life - some of these torpedo shots may knock you right out of your call in the Lord - if not possibly knock you right out of this life for good through an actual early physical death.

All of us to some degree or another have issues from our past that have got to be dealt with before we can really proceed to walk strongly in our calls with the Lord. Some Christians are so bound up with things that have happened to them in their pasts - that they literally cannot even get off the couch to start living half-way again - much less fly into their real calls and destinies for the Lord. Many of God's eagles have had their wings broken and decimated with some of the torpedo shots they have taken. Many of them are living on anti-depressants and pain killers because they can no longer handle the stress, pain and heartache of this life.

Before an eagle of God can really start to fly into the heights that God has in store for him or her in this life - that eagle has got to break off any chains that may be holding him or her back. Those chains are keeping God's eagles grounded. And for many of God's eagles - some of those chains are things that they are still holding onto from their past.

Jesus has said that He has come to set the captives free - and one of the areas that we all have to be set free from is some of our wrong thinking that has arisen out of some of the bad things that may have occurred in our past.

As you will see in the two verses I will list below - Jesus and the apostle Paul are telling us that we have to learn let the past go. Jesus says that anyone who is trying to move forward in His walk for God - but keeps looking back - is not fit for the kingdom of God.

Paul says that the one thing he makes sure to do in his walk with God is to forget those things which are now behind him and press forward into those things which lie ahead of him. Once you put these two verses right next to one another - you get perfect revelation from the Lord on this issue.

Bottom line - you have to learn how to let your past go before you can start to proceed full steam ahead in your walk and call for the Lord. If you don't learn how to let the past go - you will stay grounded and struck right where you are at, and you will never accomplish what God would have had in store for you in this life.

And that will be an eternal regret that you will carry with you once you enter into heaven and the Lord shows you what you could have accomplished for Him if you would have allowed Him to unchain you from your hurtful past. The choice is yours.

You can choose to stay bound up in your past, continue to throw pity parties, blame everyone and everything for your miseries - or you can choose to rise up and make a brand new fresh start with the Lord by choosing to fully surrender your entire life into His hands - and then work with Him to get your past cleaned up so that you can fully start living in the present again and fly into the call and destiny that He has already planned out for you before you were even born into this world.

The choice to learn how to let your past go so that you can start to fully live in your present is an individual choice for each believer. Not even God Himself will trample on your free will in this area. All God can do is give you the knowledge that this is what He wants from you - with all of it being for your own good. And then God will take you back in your past for a reasonable amount of time so that you can get all of your loose ends tied up.

But after that time is up - God will expect you to make a very important decision for your life. Will you now let your past go so that you can fly into the life and call that God now wants to give you - or will you choose to stay grounded, wailing in the misery of your past?

Each Christian will have to make that choice for themselves. That is why the Bible says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. You have to learn how to develop right thinking in your thought process with how you think and how you view things. And one of the first basic things you will need to learn and think right about is this principle of learning how to let your past go.

Learn to let go of your past in the way God will want you to - and then you can step from the dugout out onto the real playing field where the real action of life is really at!

Article written by Michael Bradley of Bible Knowledge Ministries. Their website is a resource of Bible knowledge commentary and teaching. They currently have over 100 in depth Bible articles. All free of charge. You can sign up for their free newsletter which will alert you of new articles, which are being added on a weekly basis at http://www.bible-knowledge.com/newsletter.html