You Are Not Your Past 🦋 -

What thoughts when you let them consume you drive you to the edge of a cliff, willing to throw the truth you know over? Maybe the mistakes of your past continue to find their way to the front of your mind, leaving you to feel guilty or unworthy. Perhaps you are feeling hopeless and have decided to throw in the towel because someone made you feel like Jesus could never use or forgive someone like you.

Friends, I’m here to encourage you that there is hope for you and you are not too far gone to turn it around. Your past mistakes are not too much for God to use you in the future.

You are not the only one feeling this way

If you are feeling like what I described above is you or someone you know, comfort may be found in the first episode of The Chosen. How they showed Mary Magdalene’s life leading up to Jesus saving her, may resonate with you. When she was little she came to her father scared. He asked her the question, “What do we do when we are scared?” He then helps her pray scripture over herself,

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Isaiah 43:1

This scripture would become very important to her, especially after her father passed away. In the episode it also shows where Mary had been assaulted as an adult. We know that Mary eventually was delivered from 7 demons (Luke 8:2). But there is a moment represented in the episode that caught my eye.

Half truths and a lie

Mary seems to be tired and scared of the life she is living. She pulls out a little piece of paper while she is on her knees and begins to pray. The scripture is the one her dad helped her memorize as a little girl. But the moment she turns to the Lord in prayer, flashbacks of painful memories begin filling her mind. Those memories could support Mary feeling like God had abandoned her.

It was in that moment of trying to remind herself of truth that the enemy aided images where it could appear God had left her. She became upset and ripped up the paper with the scripture on it and throw it over a cliff.

If satan can get you to focus on your emotions and feelings, he can get your focus on Jesus to deteriorate. He’s been feeding us “half truths and a lie” since Genesis with Adam and Eve. He can take a small thing and manipulate it, trying to confuse us. My pastor, Chip, said,

“God sees our identity apart from what we have done. The enemy says you lied so you are a liar. Jesus says you lied, but you are not a liar. You are my child.”
Chip Ewald

Turn around

Friends, I know it may be hard to see yourself outside of your past, especially if it’s all that the people around you bring up. BUT the one that created you, the one that takes joy in you, He sees you for YOU. He loves you.

Towards the end of that episode in The Chosen, Mary feels hopeless because the religious teacher, Nicodemus couldn’t heal her. She went to what appeared to be a pub and was begging for alcohol to numb her pain. It’s in that moment Jesus shows up covering her hand. She rejects him and runs out, but the beautiful part is He runs after her. But it was the moment He called her by name, Mary Magdalene, that she dropped her cup and turned around (She had been going by a fake name of Lily).

Jesus didn’t grab her and turn her around, He simply went after her calling her by name. The choice was hers to turn around and surrender all she had been carrying to him. He began speaking the verse that her father spoke to her as a little girl. He had such intention to bring up something that was dear to her heart. And friends, He is intentional with us too.

Mary may have thrown the truth (the piece of paper with the scripture on it) over that cliff, but the TRUTH (Jesus Christ), came after her. How does that make you feel?

Come as you are

Come as you are. You do not have to wait until you get everything in order before coming to him. It’s not our own power that changes us, it is him. Cry out to him, say you are sorry and that you need him. It does not have to be a perfect speech, speak from the heart to him.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Earlier, I asked the question: