Coming free from the past
“The Lord says, 'Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don’t you see it? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.'” Isaiah 43:18-19 (NCV).
It is glorious to look ahead to the future. We must not be troubled by things that are behind us if we have put matters right with God and with people where that was necessary. Then we must not think about what happened before, or about the past. “Look at the new thing I am going to do,” He says.
Many people cannot get completely free from their past. But it says in Isaiah 53:5 (CEV), “…by taking our punishment, he made us completely well.” When someone is constantly troubled and discouraged, there is only one reason for it; he does not have a living faith that his sins have been forgiven, he doesn’t really believe it.
We have to get a living faith!
How can you be discouraged if you believe that your sins have been removed from you as far as the east is from the west? (Psalm 103:12.) Do you really believe this? Then all discouragement will be a thing of the past. Thanks and praise to God! Do you really believe that He has cast your sins into the sea of forgetfulness (Micah 7:19), and that you will never see them again? Think about this, you who read this! Receive a living faith in it! Pray to God to fill you with a spirit of faith! What will happen to discouragement then? It will disappear completely!
We must come to a living faith in the forgiveness of sins, that is the foundation for the main goal, which is a glorious, overcoming life in Jesus Christ. Our goal is to be filled with all the fullness of God—with wisdom, goodness and mercy—in such a way that others can see it in us. (James 3:13.) This is a glorious life!
This has to do with our inner life. It is not about just keeping all the laws that Moses gave. No, we have to reveal the commandments of Jesus that He has written in our hearts and minds, and we reveal the power we receive to obey them - through the grace that is in Jesus Christ. This is a work of grace.