Bury the Ghosts of Your Past

2Corinthians 5: 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)

There is an old Christianism that says, "I may not be who I should be yet, but at least I am not who I was." This saying reinforces that we are on a walk with God. It is not a sprint, but a marathon. Endurance is what wins the race, not adrenaline. Our walk should be a progression. Will we slip up? Absolutely. Will we fall down? Jesus knows we will. But the secret to success is not in reducing the falls but rather, reducing the amount of time it takes us to get back up and on course again.

The key verse today is one of those that run the risk of becoming trite to us. We hear it so much that we diminish its importance in our lives. But it is critical that we stand on the promises contained in this little verse if we are to continue on in our walk with the power of God working in our lives.

The Apostle Paul is teaching us two important lessons. The first is not as obvious as the second. The first describes the correct relationship we have with Christ our Savior. We belong to Him. It is not a matter of equality. He is the leader and we are the follower. He is the teacher and we are the student. The definition of disciple is that we are an adherent or student of the doctrines of another. If God is your co-pilot then you are sitting in the wrong seat! The sad truth is that if we truly examine where we go wrong or fall in our walk, it is because we took control of the plane. We deviated from the teachings of He who we claim to follow. The nature of our relationship is one of servanthood and being obedient.

If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment. Job 36:11

So many of us are desperately seeking that contentment and entire ministries have been made out of the notion of prosperity but neither come close to the mark we should be pursuing. Prosperity doctrine leads people astray into thinking that blessings are something we need as opposed to something God has already given us. Traditional blessings are overlooked as material needs come to the forefront. We no longer consider our salvation, our health, our job, our church, or our friends as being blessings in our lives. They become taken for granted. Contentment becomes this elusive notion that is tied to something outside of ourselves such as money or a relationship with another person. Paul figured out contentment however:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4: 11-13

Paul discovered that contentment is not based upon his circumstances but rather on Christ. Too often we attach something we do not have, or desire to possess as what we need for contentment. As long as you are seeking your contentment from the outside, it will always be elusive. We have Christ on the inside of us. The same Spirit that raised Him from the dead makes a habitation in our hearts. He who has overcome the world is always at our right hand. With truths like that working inside of us, we should never seek contentment from the outside.

The more obvious teaching from the key verse is one we have all heard in our walks. We are a new creation in Christ! As if Paul was concerned that such a short statement might become trite to us he explains that it means our old life is gone and we now live a new life! That is what it means to be a new creation in Christ and if there is anyone in the entire Bible that needed a new life, it was Paul.

Paul is introduced in Acts, Chapter Seven as Saul. The first martyr Stephen was being stoned to death and those that participated laid their coats at the feet of Saul. But Chapter eight begins with who Saul really was:

And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Acts 8: 1-3

God would use this to His advantage as the church was scattered and the Gospel went out from Jerusalem. Saul was described as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was extremely well versed in education, intelligence, and the wisdom of man made religion. As we see in Chapter 9, God had to finally knock him off of his high horse:

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Acts 9: 1-4

This is who Saul was before he encountered God. He was a great persecutor of the early church, who presided over the deaths of many Christians. Talk about an old life you would want to forget! Jesus would forever change Saul's life that day. He blinded him for three days and then sent someone named Ananias to restore his sight. Once he could see again, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and was baptized. His old life was now dead and his new life in Christ would begin.

This is the freedom God offers all of us when we come to Him. Blinded by the world and the lies it sells us we remained steeped in sin until God reached down to save us. Saul understood this. God had to reach far down to save the man who was responsible for the deaths of many of the early Christians. But as the Lord explained to Ananias, Saul was a chosen instrument in the hand of God:

But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Acts 9: 15-16

God always has a plan and a purpose. We probably would not have conceived to use such a vile man to carry the Gospel to the lost but God's ways are so much higher than ours. By using Saul, he stops the primary persecutor of the church and shows everyone that God is willing to save anyone! So many people stay away from church and salvation because they feel their past somehow disqualifies them from God's love. This story proves that is a lie from the pit of hell. So many feel burdened by their past even though Christ is so willing to take it from us and make us a new creation! We can walk up to the altar so many times with our baggage and beg God to take it, only to strap it onto our backs again and walk back to our pew. That is not living as a new creation beloved. That is not God's design for your life. The enemy wants you living in your past so that you are ineffective for God in the present and cannot possibly believe you have a future. The will of God has so much more for you than that. Your old life is gone!

Years later, after the Apostle Paul had evangelized the known world, he still felt that he had not apprehended the reason why God met him at the dark place in his life on the road to Damascus. But he knew despite having not grabbed a hold of it, he still had to press forward:

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3: 13-14

Note the two keys in these verses for success? First, we must forget what is behind us. There is nothing you can do about your past. It is over. It is done. There is no point in lamenting it. There is no point living in it. So many Christians bear the shackles of their pasts. The Apostle Paul was once the ruthless Christian killer Saul. He could have carried those shackles around with him but he knew he would not be able to be effective if he did. His past humbled him to remember how far God had to go to save him but it did not crush him. So many times we can allow our pasts to simply crush us under the weight of condemnation that Christ never intended for us to bear:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, - Romans 8: 1

The second key for success is not only do we have to forget what is behind but we must strain for what is ahead! God always has something more for us. He always has another level for us. Paul could have been satisfied with his first missionary journey but he made three instead! He kept straining toward what God had for him. The lesson is clear. We cannot live in our past but we also cannot be content in our present. God always has a new future for us if we continue to strain towards Him and all He has for us.

The Apostle Paul was once the Pharisee named Saul. The name Saul actually means "intelligence." That was who Saul was. He had everything figured out according to his human wisdom. He knew all the answers until Jesus met him on that road and changed all the questions. He would have to diminish in order to serve God. We also, must realize with great humility who is really in charge. We must crucify our flesh and worldly wisdom and become small so that Christ can become big in us. It is no coincidence then that the name this Pharisee of the Pharisees chose to replace his old name was Paul, which means "small."

Paul would suffer for the name of Christ. I seriously doubt he ever forgot what his life was like as Saul. The screams of the Christians as they died. The amazing grace of forgiveness uttered by Stephen as he passed into the kingdom of heaven. The blood he spilled over human arrogance. Paul remembered too well:

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 1Corinthians 1: 9

But as Paul, he never lived in his past. He never allowed the ghosts of his past rule his present or blind his future. He was always straining for what lay ahead in the mighty plans God had for him. He remembered where God found him in order to remain humble. That is a model for us all. In the famous verses about the thorn in his flesh, Paul speaks about how the thorn kept him from becoming conceited from all of the glorious revelation God had given him. Many speculate what that thorn might have been. It very well could have been the voices or cries of those he had persecuted once in his life before God turned him around. Humbling him but not crippling him. Ghosts can always serve to remind us but they should never serve to haunt us.

Jesus Christ chose Paul as His instrument as much as he has chosen you and me. He has forgiven our past, dwells in our present and has secured our future. Don't walk under the condemnation of your old life. It was buried with Christ. You arose with Him a new creation! You belong to Him now. Live for Him in your present and wait until you see the future He has for you!

Reverend Anthony Wade November 17, 2010