Redeeming Your Past, Rewriting Your Future

Posted on Aug 20, 2020 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Ben Courson

Sometimes we struggle from the shame we carry from our past. The trajectory of our own stories can leave us feeling like we are at a dead end. But before we are tempted to close the book on our happiness, let us remember that our story is still being written, and that the past does not have to determine how our story will conclude.

Here’s the best news of all: Jesus is a great Rewriter of stories!

As an infant, He was taken to Egypt to escape Herod’s genocide of baby boys. Later, He returns with His parents to His homeland, is baptized with water, and spends 40 days in the wilderness undergoing temptation. These things really happened, but they have a significance beyond just giving us historical information about His life. For when Israel was an infant country, it too was taken to Egypt. Then, as Israel returned to its homeland, it did so by passing through the waters of the Red Sea and spending 40 years in the wilderness.

Did you catch that? Both Jesus and Israel are taken to Egypt as babies, pass through the waters, and then spend 40 days/years in the wilderness.

These parallels are highlighted in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience...the then‑modern descendants of the Israelites. Jesus is, Matthew reveals, living out the very story of the chosen people. And He is God’s chosen Son, rewriting the story of redemption.

Something more is always going on in the stories of the Bible. For example, the Gospels (Mark 5; Luke 8) tell the story of how Jesus met a demon‑possessed guy living in a cemetery among the tombs. When Jesus asked the man his name, he replied, “Legion.” Jesus took mercy on this man and cast the demons out of him.

If you were a Jew in the first century and hearing this story for the first time, you would find its subtext to be jaw dropping. Here’s why: Rome had shamed Israel by conquering it. When that happened, the Roman Empire sent thousands of troops—called “legions”—to march through the Jewish streets. The Roman Empire, which did not acknowledge the Hebrew God, occupied the land and took control of God’s chosen people. The existence of these legions was Israel’s great shame, and their presence a reminder that the Jews were a defeated foe, that the Romans were their masters.

When Jesus cast out Legion, He was also casting out Israel’s shame. He was retelling Israel’s story! And that same God wants to retell your story.

He wants to redeem your past and give you a new hope for the future. As Jesus promises at the tail end of the last book of the Bible, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5). He doesn’t say that He makes all new things, but that He makes all things new. He finds people with a sad, old story of being trapped and shamed and hopeless and helpless, and He reworks that story into a thing of beauty.

You are not stuck with your past or limited by your present. The future is still brimming with hope. All the chapters written so far are but a preparation for the grand plot twist which is coming.