What’s in your past?

What would you call an extremely religious man so committed to his beliefs that he seeks to find and murder those who do not hold the same beliefs? A fanatical terrorist? It sounds a lot like the kind of stuff we hear about today, but I’m actually talking about someone who lived a long time ago.

I’m talking about a man whose mission in life was to seek out and find Christians, arrest them, and then execute them. He was convinced that he was doing “God’s work.” But in reality, he was the one responsible for murdering the children of God.

There was another man who sought and developed a personal relationship with God, and God entrusted him with a great responsibility. He was given revelation to write much of the New Testament, including information about a great secret, which he was the first to know about. He traveled throughout most of the known world bringing people the good news about Jesus Christ.

The two men mentioned above are actually one and the same. His Greek name was Paul, and he is sometimes called Saul, his Hebrew name. Before accepting Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and believing that God raised him from the dead, Paul did some terrible things.

Before accepting Christ, Paul was a highly respected leader in the Jewish faith. He was a Pharisee, educated by one of the best of his time, a man named Gamaliel. Paul was extremely committed to his beliefs and was very zealous.

He was working closely with the high priest in Jerusalem to confront and eliminate this new group, the followers of Jesus. Paul arrested many Christians, put them in prison, and executed many of them. One such execution involved a wonderful man of God named Stephen.

When most Christians think of Paul, they often think of the man who wrote most of the epistles in the New Testament. Paul himself tells us that what he wrote was revealed to him; it wasn’t something he invented or just decided to do one day. God gave Paul his word, and Paul wrote what God wanted him to write so that today you and I can read the Word of God.

For Paul to do something so godly, his personal relationship with God had to have been very close, to say the least. And God must have thought highly of Paul to reveal to him what he wanted written.

It’s impressive when you stop and think about it. To me, when I think about what Paul did in his past, it’s amazing not only to see where he ended up, but more importantly, to see God’s forgiveness of Paul.

After his conversion, did Paul have any problems to deal with? Did he have any “baggage” from his past? Or did the memory of everything he did in his past just magically erase itself? Is not difficult.

Did he have some history to overcome? Yes, she did. And so do we. How did she deal with it? It is obvious that God thought highly of Paul, but what did Paul think of Paul?

God did what?

There is no question that Paul did some terrible things. But when he accepted Christ, God forgave Paul, completely and unconditionally.

After being saved, Paul proceeded to seek and develop a personal relationship with God. Then God entrusted Paul to write the Scriptures, preach, and care for his children!

It’s hard for me to think of anything worse than killing God’s children. That’s what Paul did. But God forgave Paul!

So how big are my sins, your sins? Are they as horrible as Paul’s? Hasn’t God forgiven us too?

Thoughts and feelings of guilt, awareness of sin, condemnation, and shame link us to our ugly past. Those thoughts and feelings interfere with your relationship with God and prevent you from trusting Him. They are detrimental to your trust in God.

Because?

If you think that God is disappointed in you and is condemning you, how can you trust Him? How open will you be to approach Him? How dignified will you feel?

You can know everything about how great and wonderful God is. You may know about his goodness, kindness and love from him, but why would he want to do anything for you? Who do you think you are, anyway? Paul could have chosen to live a life of damnation because of his past, but he didn’t.

As it did? He went from killing God’s family to being one of the greatest believers of all time. How did he overcome all the guilt, the consciousness of sin, the condemnation and the shame?

Paul wrote that it was wrong for him to be called an apostle, but “by the grace of God, I am who I am.” Grace is an undeserved favor. Paul understood the grace of God.

Paul refused to allow guilt, shame, awareness of sin, or condemnation over his past to rule his life or define who he was. How did he do that? Can you really get rid of all the guilt and shame and the awareness of sin and condemnation for something so big?

a big key

Here’s a big clue: God’s forgiveness has nothing to do with how sorry you are for what you’ve done, or the promises you make to God never to do it again. We may say and feel those things, but it does nothing to bring us forgiveness.

We have forgiveness because Jesus Christ paid the price for all sins. When someone accepts Jesus as Lord of all men and believes that God raised him from the dead, he receives salvation and forgiveness.

Paul had to consciously choose to accept God’s forgiveness. God’s forgiveness is God’s grace, something we cannot earn or deserve. That’s why he said, “by the grace of God, I am who I am.” It is by the grace of God that we are who we are!

It’s your choice

Life is about choices. When we choose to accept God’s grace, it will set us free. That’s what Paul did. He thing to forget about things in the past. He thing to accept God’s grace and forgiveness.

When thoughts of his ugly past came to mind, Paul dismissed them, postponed them, put them aside, and replaced them with thoughts of who God said he was now. He wanted to see himself as God saw him: holy, lovable, acceptable, forgiven, just, blameless, and blameless before Him, all by God’s grace.

I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen overnight. Paul took the time to make the transition to accept God’s forgiveness and think of himself not as who he was in the past, but as God made him to be. And then he did the best he could every day to walk with God.

Was Paul perfect after accepting Christ? No, and neither do we. We all have weaknesses and flaws.

But we can do what Paul wrote, “forgetting what lies behind,” and accept God’s grace and forgiveness. Instead of looking at our imperfections, we can look at who God made us to be at the new birth.

That’s what Paul did. And if he could do it, after all the crap from his past, we can do it too.

By the grace of God, I am who I am.