Without a past life, how can we say we have “newness of life”? (Romans 6:4)
Is your past really in the past? Have you cleansed yourself of the past or simply paused your sinful habits only to take them back up again later? Have you died to your past, and putting the sinful flesh to death daily, so that it stays dead and remains in the past? Are you growing in the Lord, or just going in circles in the same sinful patterns?
There is both the temptation to minimize the stubborn areas of sin so they remain “alive”, and also the temptation to “resurrect” those that you already have put death. This is unfortunately very common these days where uninformed and ignorant people are staying stuck in the same old sins which are ruining their lives and ruining their testimony. We need to make sure for ourselves that we have a past, and the sinful things that God has exposed are in that past, and that it’s a growing list of action, attitudes, words, and thoughts. This heap of garbage should be determinedly destroyed if we are going to press on to mature Christianity and deeper intimacy with the Lord, and have any kind of testimony and witness before others.
God does not want half-hearted Christians who keeping returning to their old filthy ways. People are looking for a true testimony, not more hypocrisy or people telling them “I’m right there with you”. The Lord and His field of people ripe for harvest are waiting for someone to say “that WAS me!”, “I used to be there!”, “the Lord has helped and delivered me, and wants the same for you!”.
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Biblical Scriptures
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, [10] nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Colossians 3:5-7 NKJV
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. [6] Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, [7] in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
Ephesians 2:1-3 NKJV
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, [2] in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, [3] among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Ephesians 4:17-24 NKJV
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, [18] having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; [19] who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. [20] But you have not so learned Christ, [21] if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: [22] that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, [23] and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, [24] and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
My favorite passage of scripture concerning this subject is below from 1 Peter, because he helps to explain how other people around us, friends and relatives, should see us and the changes. They should think you are strange because you left your past, and even mock and ridicule you because of it. I know my old friends have talked behind my back and some of their comments have made their way to me. I feel sad only because it shows they do not yet have a past, and also makes me glad to know that I do. I want them to join me, not for friendships sake, but for Christ’s sake.
1 Peter 4:3-4 NKJV
For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles-when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. [4] In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.
Dissipation: A dissolute, irregular course of life; a wandering from object to object in pursuit of pleasure; a course of life usually attended with careless and exorbitant expenditure of money, and indulgence in vices, which impair or ruin both health and fortune. (Websters Unabridged 1828)
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