"Most of us need to stop looking over our shoulders at our past mistakes. To do so is to continue to carry guilt with us over sins that the Lord has already forgiven and forgotten. When we continue to bemoan past failures--even though we have confessed those sins and failures to God, been forgiven for them, and made a decision with our wills to repent of them and change our ways--we are stating that we have not been able to forgive ourselves. We are carrying excess and unnecessary baggage in our lives.
If God has forgiven you, which He says He does every time you confess your sins to Him, then forgive yourself!
The more you cling to past failures and cause them to produce doubt in your life, the more you destroy your confidence in the Lord. You begin to see yourself as a failure that God cannot use, a "mistake" that God has made, and unworthy person whom God cannot redeem or use for His purposes. That thinking is unscriptural. You have never made a mistake that God cannot forgive, remedy, and work toward your good eventually. You don't have the ability to mess up so much that God will reject you or turn away from using you. You cannot undo the bonds of love that He has wrapped all around you.
If you think you are a failure, you'll act like a failure, and the things you attempt to do will fail. Choose to lay down your failure mentality, and see yourself as a beloved, talented, and spiritually gifted child of God. Act as the saved, Holy Spirit-filled, on-your-way-to-being-conformed-to-Christ person that you are!!"--Charles Stanley
1 comment:
Thanks for the reminder! I need that once every now and then. Our past sure can be a stumblingblock to what God wants to do with us in the future. We just gotta focus on the present, and do what God wants us to do now! What a comfort it is to know that God never gives up on us, but keeps working in our lives to make us more like His Son!
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