Do Not Give in to Temptation!

When we come to the feet of Christ and surrender to Him, faith immediately awakens in us a sense of vitality and hope in the new future, but seldom is it said that, when we experience the new spiritual birth, Christ radically changes our past.

The hope of eternal life, from the perspective of saving faith in Jesus Christ, definitively opens our minds and enables us to begin to understand the God who saves our lives. And what became of the past in which we walked ‘dead in our trespasses and sins’? Frequently remembering the past and bringing it into the present of the new life in Christ can produce confusion and doubts in the new convert—and in Christians who have not yet understood this. It will always be like a shadow attempting to dim the light of Salvation and tarnishing the joy and contentment produced by the miracle of genuine conversion.

Many Christians, old and new, have still not overcome their past from before they knew Christ, and often, in their minds and their actions, the ghost of Adam appears, offering them another bite of the forbidden apple, as though seeking to make them accomplices in the original sin for which it was necessary for a Savior to come into the world. It is no longer Eve, nor Adam, nor even the serpent who are to blame for our falls as Christians, but rather the wretched tendency we all have to blame someone for our stumbles in the Christian life. The cause almost always lies in failing to acknowledge His lordship over our lives, in failing to understand that when He intervenes in my life, He completely erases the sinful burden of my past, and I rise again from the waters of His Spirit, transformed into a new creation. In Christ, that business of ‘passing the ball of blame’ to someone else is over. It is over because, on the very day of our spiritual birth, Christ gave us a new past, a present of grace, and a future of glory.

Living the Christian life while blaming oneself for mistakes committed in the past is clear evidence that there was a new birth with the help of forceps. I express it this way only to illustrate the idea, not literally, and I do so in order that we may reflect on the fact that it makes no sense to condemn ourselves when our entire past was eradicated at the root through the divine intervention of the One who made us His children. God speaks to us today and says: ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…’ (Romans 8:1a)

But where is the new past? Well then, if Christ erased your past—everything you were and everything you did before knowing Him—because He made you a new creation, then your new past is found in what Christ did on the Cross; there, the old person we were was crucified forever with all his wickedness, foolishness, and perversity, so that what you were has already died; you are a spiritual being who longs to glorify God in everything you do. God reminds us: ‘Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:2–3, emphasis added). Yes, it is glorious to know that the death of my life before Christ took away my dark past and that now my life is in Christ by the will of God. My past was left on the cross; my Christian life now allows me to focus forward, rest in the hope of a better future in obedience and holiness, and show the world that I am a new spiritual being who has fixed his gaze on Christ. Paul said: ‘Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have attained it. Rather, one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and striving to reach what lies ahead.’ (Philippians 3:13, emphasis added).

Beloved brothers and sisters, I invite you to reflection and prayer. Do not allow the evil one to tempt you to reject the truth that your past is dead forever. Your old past was erased so that today you may fully feel His presence in your life. You are a new vessel for God’s new wine, which gives you purpose and convictions that transcend the eternal. Do not doubt it. He promised it.

God bless you!