Strange question? I thought so when I heard it this morning.
It happened while worshipping. I was dancing as the worship team sang “You are my future, and my past.”
Holy Spirit: “Who is YOUR past”?
Me: “Say what? Don’t you mean what is my past?”
Holy Spirit: “No. Who?”
Suddenly the light bulb went on. My past was no longer “what had happened to me” or “what had been handed down to me from past generations”. My past is WHO had happened to me. That would be Jesus. He wants to be just connected to me in my past as He is connected to me in my present and will continue to be connected with me in my future.
Obviously, if you have read very much of my blog you know I live and breathe inner healing. But up until this morning I believed Jesus could redeem what had happened. Now I can see He replaces every wounded place with the fulness of who He is so that our past becomes WHO not WHAT as we grant Him permission to do so. Seriously.
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ
has become a new person.
The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:17
Talk about healing broken hearts and setting the captives free! (Isaiah 61:1-4). The whole “new life” thing, I had only applied to the present and the future. I’d never even contemplated my past being made new. Have you?
But as I shared in my post last week – our Heavenly Father does not compromise when it comes to free will. It’s your choice how much of your past you are willing to release in exchange for the fullness of who Jesus is.
Do you think I’m kidding? Letting go can seem pretty scary. It means no more defining yourself by your past and its contents. No more defining yourself by “my family is angry, addicts, bitter, broken, co-dependent, fearful, mean, shut-down” …. fill in your own blank of any negative traits in your family heritage.
Letting go means being willing to feel your heart fresh and new without knowing exactly what form that takes.
With Jesus as your past, His blood becomes the filter of what inheritance you receive from your past and your family. The negative no longer gets to reside in you and define you. The godly, life-giving inheritance of both your earthly family and who Jesus is gets to take root, grow and blossom. So yes, you and your life will look different from what you have known … but is that such a bad thing?
My thoughts …. that’s unconditional hope!
Hope Without Limits 