We often struggle in letting things go.

It’s why we visit cemeteries on birthdays. It’s why we refuse to pick up the phone when that person is calling. And it’s why we beat our selves up over a mistake we made a decade prior.

It’s one thing to hear that God “forgets” our sins as soon as we repent of them, but it’s another thing entirely to actually live like we believe it. We usually don’t, and it becomes a burden we unnecessarily bear. What’s sad is, with many people, feeling bad over a past sin is seen as an intentional burden.

 

In Jesus’ day there were these people called the Essenes, who—among other things—used to flog themselves, and literally beat themselves up as a show of contrition before God. They had the misplaced idea that they were bad and deserved to suffer bad things because of it. In reality God tells us that He made us good (Genesis 1), but sin stained us. Thankfully, Jesus blood washes away our sins and makes us good again. There’s simply no need to feel bad anymore about your sins. You’re wasting your time; those sins were nailed to His cross. He felt bad about them FOR YOU, and then died FOR YOU so you wouldn’t HAVE to feel bad about them ever again.

It is not God that wants you fretting over your past. It is Satan. The world’s greatest liar and enemy of God and man is a smooth and subtle talker, capable of tricking people into climbing into a time machine and taking a trip back to the past, to the moment when they made their big mistake, and then dwell on it, let it fester and let it distract you from the present and the future. He’s a master and making people think “guilt” is an admirable thing. It is not. It is not becoming of a Christian to feel guilt over the past (though it is a common struggle—1 Timothy 1:15).

We need to let go of our past and turn it over to God. Once we do…if the Divine mind no longer thinks of it, who are we to?