Fellow Christ follower, are you struggling with letting go of your forgiven past? If so, consider the following.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He paid the full debt for our sins. The moment we place our trust in what He has done for us—taking our place and paying the full penalty—we are made a new creation: “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV). God forgives us, adopts us into His family as sons and daughters, clothes us with the righteousness of His Son, and delivers us “from the domain of darkness” into “the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13–14, ESV).
But purging our minds of the memories of our past is not easy. After we have placed our faith and trust in Christ, how do we deal with the memories, regrets, and accusations that still surface in our minds?
First, we need to remember that all of our sins—past, present, and future—were nailed to the cross. Christ took them upon Himself and paid the penalty for them once and for all. To keep clinging to them, or to remain haunted by them as though they still stand against us, is in some sense a form of unbelief. It means we have not yet fully rested in the truth that Christ’s payment was complete.
That truth should free us, but clearing our minds is not always simple. Our brains remember our past, and we may continue to carry the emotional weight of things God has already forgiven. Since God no longer counts our sins against us, we shouldn’t keep counting them against ourselves. God’s enemy, however, does not want us to enjoy that freedom. Instead, he torments us by reminding us that we do not deserve to be free from guilt. He may even try to convince us that this is simply who we are, that resistance is pointless, and that we may as well return to the same sins again and again.
This does not mean we are free to sin, or that we stop sinning once we are saved. We are to act like the children of God and citizens of Heaven that we are. We are to be holy like our heavenly Father is holy: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16, ESV).
We also need to remember that we have a very real enemy. Ephesians 6 reminds us that our struggle is not merely physical or emotional; we wrestle against spiritual forces. Those forces know how to exploit our weaknesses, using accusation, shame, and lies to convince us that we are still under condemnation and to keep us from living in the freedom Christ has purchased for us.
But these forces, led by the devil, are defeated, and their destination is set. They have no power over the Christ follower that we do not allow them to have. While they cannot read our minds, they know us well enough to use circumstances and stimuli to implant thoughts so that we think those thoughts are our own. Sometimes the enemy presses on familiar weaknesses, and we may not know whether the arguments in our minds come from ourselves or from him.
So how do we manage it when our minds keep replaying the past—when our own thoughts accuse us, tell us how badly we failed, and insist that we are still defined by what we have done? We begin by returning to what is true: our sins have been paid for, our identity has been secured, and our lives are held in the hands of the One who is greater than every accusation raised against us.
Ask God, in Jesus’ name, to guide you in applying the following verses to your condemning thoughts as they come into your mind. It would be helpful to memorize them.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, ESV). The sequence is important. We cannot resist the devil, or even our own thoughts, without first submitting to God.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1–2, ESV).
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8, ESV).
It is vitally important that we understand and live according to who we are in Christ, submitting to God and resisting the devil, including the thoughts that keep coming back to condemn us. And when we do sin again, we are to confess it to God—that is, admit it, call it what it is, and trust His promise: “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, ESV).