Your Past

Luke 17:32- Remember Lot’s wife. Earlier this week, I had a rather strange feeling in my soul. I really could not put my finger on it. Therefore, after I realized that “hey something is up” I checked myself and prayed a bit and while I was in the shower something struck me in my spirit. I began to put all the pieces together, I began to “bridge” all of those peculiar feelings that I experienced throughout the day and what popped in my mind throughout the day and why those things that popped in my mind gave me this not so joyous, Pentecostal feeling. I realized as I was pondering my day in the shower, that I was experiencing these feelings because I was reminding myself of all the “dumb” things I did in the past when I was in both the world and the church.
Everybody knows the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Lot and his family. However, for the sake of whatever I will retell this Sunday School story in a nutshell. Lot was a righteous man that walked with Abraham. He and Abraham were best buddies! However, Abraham had something in his spirit that said “hey I need to part ways with this guy or he will bring me down.” As a side note, as Apostolics, we need to make sure who we hang around and who we rub shoulders with contains the same reverence toward God as you do, and if not you need to cut them off. Especially, if you are just coming into church, you really need to cut off some people who you know are going to cause you to lose something that you really don’t want to lose. Now back to the story, Abraham said “hey Lot you have to go this way and I go the other or the other way around, but either way we’re not going the same route.” So, both parted ways and Abraham became somewhat famous if you want to call him that, and Lot went on to build cities in which immorality and whatever else the devil felt like doing was welcome. These cities are known to us as Sodom and Gomorrah. Finally, God had enough and decided that He was going to destroy these cities, but Lot and his family were free to go. However, they were not allowed to look back, they were not allowed to look back at the past, they were not allowed to look back at something that was completely wrong and disgusting. Lot’s wife, however did look back and turned into “a pillar of salt.”
God taught me a lesson this week. He taught me to not look back; if you do look back it will kill you spiritually. It will depress you, it will oppress you, and it will haunt you. There is absolutely nothing you can do to change the past at all. All you can do is say “God forgive me, I repent of that and I won’t do it again.” And there is nothing wrong in doing that. If you offended someone in the past, then make it right with them, sincerely apologize and that’s all you can do, it will be up to the person whether or not they accept the apology.
We cannot afford to dwell upon what we did wrong, we just need to learn, gain some wisdom and move on! There’s no reason to start hitting yourself in the head because of something you did way back yonder. Just get right with God and move on. Just keep praying, keep fasting, and keep “fighting the good fight of faith.” If you are saying, well you don’t realize what I did. Hey, newsflash buddy, the blood of Jesus still covers it! It washes as white as snow! There is nothing that you can do that it can’t cover. So please don’t think that you did something in which God can’t forgive you for it.
In conclusion, we need to keep our memories behind us and realize that its okay and that I just need to move on. We cannot get hung up on something that is impossible to fix on earth. But, you can fix something that’s wrong with you and God. As long as your relationship with God is top notch then you have nothing to worry about. Don’t think that something that you already repented for, is going to hinder your relationship with God. Bringing up mistakes in your past, is just another tool for the devil, so just “resist the devil and he will flee.” God is not a God of the past, but of the present. Do not focus on what you did, but what you can do.