“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34 (ESV)
Recently Robin Bullock powerfully spoke about tomorrow. Our past is just filled with holograms, wisps of memories. When we live in the past we take time and life from the present. Many people hold onto the past, the good old days, the relationships, experiences and people who are no longer in our lives. But God calls to live in the moment and have faith for His plans for tomorrow. Our tomorrow is perfect, without sin or pain. And Satan can’t touch our tomorrow without our letting him into it!
All our pain, failures, wounds, traumas, and regrets are in our past. Satan wants us to keep reliving them, which keeps us chained to them. God doesn’t desire for you to live in hell on earth! This is why forgiveness is so important! Forgiveness sets us free from the past, releasing us to live in the present. Your past will absorb your life today. Your past is like a corpse chained to your back, sucking all your life out of you. The problem is, once the past has absorbed all your life in the present you will start drawing on your future, and this will actually cut a life short. Living in guilt from the past, steals from your present, putting a claim on your future!
God did not allow the bad, painful things of your past to purify or to teach you a lesson. God doesn’t assign demons to train us. Demons come to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10), and that’s not a part of Gods methodology for maturing His kids!
We have all heard of Paul’s thorn in the flesh. There are many suggestions as to what that was. But Robin Bullock gave a powerful possibility. Paul himself said that he had been given a messenger of Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7). God doesn’t use demons to accomplish His work in His children, any more than you would bring a pedophile in to babysit your kids! Consider this possibility. Paul was first Saul, a Pharisee who was tightly bound by the religious spirit. He gave consent to the stoning of Stephen and literally hunted down other followers of Christ. Then He met Christ on the road to Damascus and everything changed. His name was changed to Paul and he was set free for his religious blindness. Before he was Paul, Saul was a murderer! Yet there came a point in his life when he actually declared that he was innocent of hurting any person (Acts 20:26)! This thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan, a demon, was there reminding him of his past. As Paul asked God to remove this thorn, he heard God say, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9)! It was God’s grace that gave him the ability to pull that thorn out! Grace is God’s way of seeing you through your tomorrow! That’s why Paul could say he has hurt no one! God’s grace cleanses us and makes us as if we had not sinned at all. Living in our past keeps us from stepping into our destiny. Take God’s grace and let it set you free from your past into your tomorrows!
As you sit with the Lord, ask Him to show you any place that your past is robbing from your present. Feel free to write these items down on a piece of paper. Then take that paper and proclaim God’s grace over each and every item you wrote down, As you release these people and things, rip the paper into pieces declaring the past is no longer got a hold of you. Proclaim that His grace is sufficient for your weaknesses. It’s His grace, not your guilt and shame that covers you now! When the enemy comes back trying to remind you of your past, simply speak out that the devil is a liar and that as a child of God you have NO condemnation (Romans 8:1). You may have to do that regularly for a while, but believe me, the demonic oppressor will give up if you stand firm under this grace. God’s grace is sufficient for our past, present and future! Thank Him for it!!!
