by Donna L. Watkins
© Donna L. Watkins - Eastern Fence Lizard
Jesus came to redeem the past, present and future. Are you holding on the pain of the past? Jesus is wanting to remove it from your life. You can't experience true peace, love and joy if you're dealing with pain from the past. It will weigh you down and there will be nothing left over to give love to yourself and others.
You can't have a healthy physical body with an unhealthy mind. Our brain is involved in all of the functions of the body. Our thoughts create hormones in less than a nanosecond. You can't afford to not take control of your thoughts. It's always time to renew your mind.
Bad things happen ... and they happen to good people. We are human and finite. We cannot understand the whole scope of our lives, but God gives us an option of redemption and with it comes grace and mercy to let go of the junk.
Romans 8:6 - For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
You don't have to bear that pain any more! Can you classify your thoughts as spiritual? Or do you rehearse mistakes and accusations, railing against the very flesh that Christ died to redeem?
Human thought is warped by sin. Everything we do starts with a thought. But with the Spirit of God we can grab hold of the spiritual realities of the Word of God. On Truth we can stand to battle the past. The Enemy wants to put you under. He'll remind you of the past for as long as you let him ... but you need to take the Word of God and remind him of his future!
Paul says in 2 cor. 10:5 to take every thought captive if it does not line up with God's Word. He didn't tell us not to think. For some of us that would mean we were surely dead. I'm one who never has an empty mind so I have to make sure I keep the bad thoughts out and the good ones flowing.
When you first recognize how many bad thoughts you're having it seem impossible to control them all. The devil convinces you that you should give up right there. Don't even go any further than the first day to try to renew your mind. With practice you will get to where you'll know whether a thought is good or evil in a split second, and your mind will be trained to overcome it.
Every action is preceded by a thought, so we create our lives with our thoughts. Whatever we do with them determines the results we have to deal with. It's worth it to begin this process of renewing your mind and redeeming your past.
We have too much garbage stored away for our minds to continue to hold it all. This is how life gets hard. This is why it looks like there's no way out. A mind full of the past hurts, sorrows and unhealed wounds will take us down physically.
What do we replace these thoughts with? Philippians 4:8 tells us to think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, excellent and admirable.
So you write down some thoughts you want to think about. If you have a problem with being negative, write down 10 blessings and good things that are continually in your life and take on the devil with them.
In your quiet time God will guide you and give you something that you can use every day. The Word is a two-edged sword, so you can chop off the devil's head and stomp it into the ground. Don't let him have your mind. Redeem the past today!
Note: What inspired me to write this article was a sermon by Pastor David Clay. You can hear that message, Redeeming The Past on the church website.
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© 2007 Donna L. Watkins - This article was reprinted with permission. Visit the author's website, TheNatureInUs.com for more articles and free email subscription. Link URL: http://www.thenatureinus.com
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