Led to Be Separate from the Past

Posted on Apr 11, 2016 Topic : Weekly Devotionals

You cannot find the wholeness God has for you if you don’t separate yourself from your past. Carrying the past around with you will exhaust you to the point that you cannot go on. God has freedom from all that for you. Jesus will deliver you, and the Holy Spirit will lead you out of it and into the future God has for you.

You are not your past—you are not your father and you are not your mother—you are who God made you to be.

In order for the Holy Spirit to lead you into your own promised land—the place God has for you, where He will bless you, establish you, and make you fruitful for the work He has for you to do—your heart must be completely dependent upon Him only. That means you have to be separated from your past so that it cannot control you in any way. You don’t need to have it erased from your memory, but you cannot carry it around with you, and it must not have any hold on you. You can’t move into a new time carrying a load of negative old times with you on your back.

Being separate from your past means you don’t let it influence your life in a negative way. The main reason we let that happen is because we have not forgiven someone or some incident. Forgiving someone can be hard…or nearly impossible in some cases. But God forgives you of all past sins when you receive Jesus, and His Holy Spirit of love will always lead you to forgiveness and enable you to do it.

One good reason to forgive is to be forgiven. Jesus said, “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25, emphasis added). God will not continue to forgive us if we don’t forgive others. And we cannot live that way.

Forgiveness is the best way to separate yourself from the negative aspects of your past, and it can start immediately.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you any places in your past where you need to forgive someone—as recently as five minutes ago or as far back as your earliest memory. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help you do that. Many times a lack of forgiveness runs so deep that forgiving someone becomes a process as God reveals layers of unforgiveness you didn’t even know you had.

Another good reason to forgive is that it gives you a clear conscience before God and He answers your prayers. If you confess your unforgiveness to God, it clears the air between you. It pleases Him. “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:21-22, emphasis added). Having clarity of mind and confidence before God, and knowing He hears and answers your prayers, are reasons enough to forgive anyone of anything.

Not forgiving won’t take away your salvation, but it will take away your peace. It will hinder your intimacy with God and halt your journey into wholeness. Refusing to forgive is torturous and too much for you to bear. It takes a toll on your body as well as your mind and emotions. When you have unforgiveness toward someone, it binds you to them and keeps you in the past with them. You are never free of them or the memory of what happened until you forgive.

Forgiveness is an issue you will have to grapple with as long as there are people in the world. But the Holy Spirit will always lead you toward forgiveness. Usually, you know when you need to forgive someone, but there may be times when you don’t realize you have picked unforgiveness back up again. Or there may be deeper layers you haven’t gotten free of yet. Whatever the case, don’t let a lack of forgiveness stop up the communication and closeness between you and God. Nothing is worth that.

PRAYER POWER

Lord, help me to separate myself completely from the past. I know You have set me free from it, and I cannot move into all You have for me if I continue to carry it with me. Deliver me from every negative aspect of it. Help me to recognize any person or circumstance from the past that I need to let go of by forgiveness on my part. Help me to be so separate from my past that it doesn’t negatively influence the present or keep me from moving into the future You have for me. Help me to forgive so that I can be forgiven (Luke 6:37). I don’t want the torture of not forgiving to destroy my mind, body, and soul (Matthew 18:34-35). I know that forgiving someone doesn’t make that person right, but it will make me free.

Reveal to me any specific person or incident I still have resentment toward so I can confess it as sin and be set free of it. Enable me to let it go completely so that nothing stands in the way of my moving into all You have for me. Help me to forgive others the way You have forgiven me—completely and unconditionally (Ephesians 4:32). I want to always do what is pleasing in Your sight. Lead me, Holy Spirit, into the light of forgiveness, so that I am not stumbling in the dark (1 John 2:10-11).

In Jesus’ name I pray.