Daily Devotional for Monday, September 9

Acknowledging the Past

“Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger,” Psalm 85:2, 3.

“Never look back.” “Stop living in the past, that was then, this is now.” “You need to get over it and move forward.” We hear that a lot, do we not? Living in the past, especially if it is a past full of regret and mistakes, is not the best idea nor the best way to have joy in one’s current life. This is also true in the Christian life; once we believe in Jesus Christ, God forgives and forgets our sins and considers us sin-free and justified. God moves on from our sin, and we move on to a new life. In our earthly lives, sometimes we have to move on as well. If someone made a mistake that harmed us, we can probably not undo the mistake, but we can move on. If we are the ones who made the mistake, we can likely not unmake it and may need to move past it.

On the other hand, acknowledging the past is sometimes essential; we just do not want to reside there. If we have caused harm to another person, admitting what we did and attempting to make reparations might be healing for both parties. The nation of Israel does that in this psalm; they openly acknowledged their sin before God. In the model prayer, Jesus taught us that we must admit our sin before God when we bring our petitions to Him.

Even though God clears our slate and we move on, acknowledging our past is part of our salvation. We all have a past because we are all sinners. This is called repentance. Repentance leading to salvation is simply our acknowledgment that we are sinners in the eyes of God, with no hope of repairing our relationship with Him.

JUST A THOUGHT
Living in the past is never rent-free.

Wally Fry