Day 157: That was Then, This is Now

Psalms 129:1-2, 4

Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth - let Israel now say - Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed over me...The Lord is righteous; He has cut the cords of the wicked.

My favorite part about this scripture is that there is a shift from the first statement to the second. There is a past and a present presented here. Saying they used to afflict us greatly but not anymore, they still afflict us but now they will not and cannot overcome us. It also has this air about that reminds me of Isaiah 54:17, that no weapon formed against us will prosper. As long as God is on our side we will be alright.

Have you ever had a moment whether joking or not, you have said something along the lines of, “I will not be defined by my past”, or “That was the past…”? It gives us and others the idea that we are not our past and we will not be defined by it. That it what I get from the above scripture as there is a shift in the middle with the word ‘now’. Here’s how it happened back then but this is what is happening now, something has changed from what used to be and all we are focused on is, what it. I bring this up because I feel as if many of us especially those of us in our twenties are defined by our past, we are defined by the person we used to be. As we get older and we start to change, our mindset starts to change, we start to change our ways. We stop doing things that we used to do. There are many shifts that happen in our lives around this time. Many times people will not allow us to change or accept the change that has taken place within us because they are still defining us by the person we used to be and the things we used to do. We even do this to ourselves. I feel like sometimes we are even defined by a past that does not belong to us. What I mean by that is, because our parents did things we are bound to do what they did. We are in a way subject to take the same steps or path our parents took. Sometimes people define us by the mistakes or sins of our parents before they even give us a chance. They never even get to know us for who we truly are.

I want to encourage you today and let you know that you are not the person you used to be. Yes, we have all made mistakes and bad decisions, trust me I’ve made some very bad mistakes and sketchy decisions in my twenty-four years of living. I used to sit and sulk in my mistakes, but I had to realize that God did not send His son to die on that cross so that I could sit around in shame. He does not want we to sulk and worry about what we cannot change. Most importantly, God does not define us by our past, who we used to be is not who we are. If God was worried about our past, He would not have sent Jesus to save us, God knew that we had a future and He wants that future to be spent with Him. When Jesus came and died on that cross He stopped our past from invading our future. Jesus took away our sin so that we can now say, our sin is behind us, it is no longer who we are or how we live. That is our testimony, that Jesus took us and made us new.

We can now say, I used to look for love in all the wrong places but I have since found it in Jesus and I am no longer defined by my past. Who I was doesn’t compare to who I am. All those things that happened before, that was then but this, this is now, and now I am much better. I am no longer run by my sinful ways I have submitted my life to Christ and become a new creation. Who I am has cut ties with who I was.

Response

I want to leave you with a scripture today and respond however you feel led. Whatever you do, be sure to end with a prayer.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 158!

Day 108:Your Mistakes Don't Define You

Today we are going to talk about Peter, and his relationship to Jesus. Peter seems, to me, to be a very passionate man. He seems to always want to be on the right side, and sometimes he ends up on the wrong side. Peter is known as the disciple that denied Jesus three times. But Peter didn’t think that He would be the one to deny Jesus, he couldn’t see himself doing something like that. We as humans can relate to this so much because, we are unpredictable. We don’t know exactly what will happen or what we will do. Sometimes we shock ourselves with the things we say and do, and this could be either good or bad.

John 13: 36-38

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.”37 Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

Before being told this, Peter said, “I will lay down my life for you” He was speaking to Jesus when he said this. Jesus foresaw what Peter could not, which is why He’s God and we’re not.

John 18:17

17 The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.”

That’s the first denial

John 18:25-27

Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, “You also are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”26 One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.

Peter has just done the thing that he probably never thought He’d do. He denied Jesus. Earlier Peter said that he would lay down his life, but when faced with the fear that He might actually die, he denied Jesus. Peter knew the risk of being a Christ follower, or even a disciple of Christ. Peter was one of the twelve.

Sometimes we do things not realizing what they are. Sometimes we do things wanting to do the opposite. I’m sure Peter did not want to deny Jesus but He did. I’m sure he felt terrible. Many times it is our actions that deceive us. We do the things we say we’d never do and the thing we thought we’d never do. I think Paul says it best in Romans 7:15, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

We all make mistakes, we’ve all screwed up in our lives, I know I have pretty bad in my 24 years of living. There is conviction which is from God, that leads us to repentance, and there is self-condemnation or condemnation from others that leads us to regret. One is the right way the other is not so great. God can change a repentant heart, because we are giving our sin up to follow Him. We are confessing it and receiving His forgiveness, When we spend or waste time regretting the past or the things we’ve done we're not proud of, we tend to pull away from God. We are harboring things that we cannot change, if we have repented and asked God to remove the sin and change our hearts, there is no use in holding on to it. A lot of times we have to forgive ourselves for the things we have done. We talk a lot about forgiveness, sometimes the person we need to forgive is, us. If we spend all the time regretting the past we we will miss the present, we will not be able to move on and grow in Christ.

John 21:7

That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

Peter could not wait to see Jesus. The scripture say that Peter threw himself into the sea to go see Jesus. THere was a Savior on shore and Peter wasted no time in going to see Him.

What stand out to me in this scripture is Peter’s excitement to see Jesus. Now if Peter was still regretting what he had done, there is a possibly that he would not have been able to approach Him.

Now none of this is to say that it is okay to sin because we serve a gracious God. But if we really decide to live for and like Christ, we will get to a point where we don’t want to sin. We have all done things that we are not proud of, but even in that we have the opportunity to repent and not miss a chance to connect with your heavenly father.

John 21:15-17

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep

God still wants to use you, it doesn’t matter what your past look like. When we make the decision to truly serve Him, meaning, living, loving, and look like Him we become a vessel for His work. When we repent God throws our sins into the sea of forgetfulness. Our past plays a role in who we are, but our past mistakes do not dictate the person we become, God makes that choice. He’s already made it actually, He knows who we are and what we will become. . We are not our mistakes, we are children of the one true living God. Peter goes on to become one of the key apostles, and builder of the church.

Matthew 16:18-19

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Peter tells the testimony of Jesus Christ, and pays for it. He is thrown into prison for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter goes out and does exactly what He has been called and chosen to do. There was a time when Peter denied Jesus in order to save His own life. This same man who died a martyr.

It matters not what we did but what we are doing now. There is time to repent and get it right. There is no time to regret our mistakes.

Reflection

1. Do you live your life in regret?
2. Are you able to forgive yourself for your mistake?
3. Have you confessed and repented?

Prayer Time

Allow you answers to the above questions guide your prayer. If you feel God is speaking to you right now lay your heart out to Him. If there are things you need to repent for , confess those thing to God and turn your heart to Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. MAke sure you share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 109!

Day 24: Living In (and Regretting) the Past

We as human beings tend to live in the past a lot, with our regrets, and wishing we could have done something different to change an outcome, or wishing we could rewind time and take a different route than the one we chose.. We look back so much that we start to stumble on what is in front of us, Whether we regret the decisions we made or are looking back at “the best times of  our lives” for some reason we can’t stay out of the past.

Often times we hear the statements “If I could rewind the hands of time” or “If i had a time machine I would…” I’m very guilty of it, at one point in my life I spent so much time regretting a decision I made when I was eighteen I was twenty two and still regretting it. Then I realized that there is nothing I can do but move on, and know that even in my stupidity God works. I was so focused on the past that I could not see what God was doing right in front of me. Sometimes our desires to change the past can blur our present.

-Dyamond

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

When we become Christians many time automatically are burdened with guilt and shame because of the life we lived before we came to Christ. We apologize a million times for our sins, to make sure God forgives us. Once we give our lives to Christ, once we submit ourselves to Him and repent we become a new creation. Everything we did is no more, we can let it go because God did the moment He forgave us. God doesn’t dwell on our past, He loves us in the now. Micah 7:19 says Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!

Philippians 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

There is something greater that lies ahead, we just have to keep moving forward. We can glance back sometimes to see the progress and where we have come from, but we can’t stay there. Sometimes we have to move forward without looking back. Where we’re going is far greater than where we’ve been. And where we’ve been has put us on the path to where we are going. So appreciate the past, don’t live in it but appreciate it and move on. Press toward Christ, to eternity, press toward His love and His final destination. We can’t keep tripping on the present because we’re too busy in the past, it won’t work.

Isaiah 43:18 (read scriptures 14-28)

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

In this chapter Isaiah is speaking to the israelites who have been exiled in Babylon for the last five decades. God is about to deliver them out of the hands of Babylon. As He reminds the people of the Exodus He tells them to forget the former things. Forget about that because He is about to do something new, possibly better. Sometimes we look at how good things used to be and can’t imagine how they can be as good or even better. When we think like this  we make the past so much bigger than the present. Having faith in what happened long ago instead of what is happening now.  Something we have to realize about God is, He never changes, the same miracles He did a thousand years ago He can do today.   I think God wants them to leave the past in the past and focus on what He is doing now. We must take our focus off of what happened years ago and focus on what is happening now, the past can’t do anything for us right now.

Reflection

“If I knew then what I know now…”

1. Complete the above sentence, without thinking about it just write.
2. Now think about who you would be, how different your life would be if you “knew then what you knew now”
3. Realize that everything happens for a reason and everything moment is an opportunity for growth. You had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you, and know what you know. Appreciate every moment, even the not-so-smart ones, and look forward to growth.

Prayer time

Lay your heart down before God, ask Him to search your heart, and remove any regrets. If you are holding on to the past, surrender it to Christ and let it God. Be willing to let go of whatever it is you are holding on to. Speak to God, Cry out, do whatever you need to do. Go into a prayer closet or find a secluded place where you can be alone, and just open your heart to Him. Spend this time with God and be completely honest with Him.