Episode #133 When Your Past Haunts You… – God’s Love for You is Steadfast

Friend, do you know that God's love for you is steadfast?

He's not fickle. He doesn't look for ways to remove his love or to cast you aside. His love for you, has always been loyal, and it has always persevered.

Today we're kicking off a new series and we're taking a look at God's steadfast love. And sometimes it can be hard for us to recognize and receive the love that God has for us based on circumstances, based on what we’ve walked through before, or what we’re walking through now.

And so through this series, we're going to be looking at some of those times when it can be difficult to notice or to accept God's steadfast love for each of us. And so today we're talking about receiving God's steadfast love even when your past haunts you. I don't know what that means for you. I don't know what that looks like. But my question to start us off is:

Do you feel like your past haunts you?

Like you're still paying for your past mistakes? Like you still have residual effect and circumstances in your life based on calls that you've made before? Do you sometimes feel like the sins of your past remove God from wanting you to come near to him? I've struggled with that for years in my life, even as a believer.

If I felt good about my behavior, if I felt good about my choices and like I was doing good Christian things, then I thought God was pretty okay with me coming near, that he would want to see me. He'd want to hear about how good I was doing.

But if I wasn't doing good, If I was making mistakes, if I struggled with repeat areas of sin, which I have, I felt like God wasn't as excited to see me. I thought he'd want me to do things to earn back some of those good graces. And so I would try and make better choices and I would try and kind of earn his approval back before I would even try coming near to him again. In those seasons, my past from yesterday could haunt me today, much less my past from years ago.

If you've been around the podcast for a little bit, you know that I came to Christ at a really young age. I received salvation when I was five-years-old, and it was genuine. I understood that I had sinned and I needed a Savior, but I didn't know about relationship with God until later.

And I didn't really understand God's steadfast love for me.

I really thought he was rescuing me and now kind of brought me in to pay him back. That it was important for me to do things to please him, to show him I was grateful that he rescued me.

I was a Pharisee. I cleaned up the outside of the cup, but I didn't know that I could receive healing and cleansing on the inside. I worked really hard to perform, and so I judged people who didn't work as hard as me, and I judged myself the hardest. I was always looking for ways that I could prove my worth in and of my own merit, instead of receiving the steadfast love of God and learning how to live from that place.

I still have mistakes I've made in my past that can haunt me if I let them. But because of the steadfast love of God, we don't have to be haunted by our past. I'm going to read for us Romans 5:5-11. It says,

“and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:5-11)

While we were weak, while we were sinners, while we were his enemies, while we were ungodly, that is what God called the right time to offer us his love. God's love for us is steadfast. It always has been since before we knew that he loved us, his love for us persevered. His love for us was loyal to save, he was loyal to rescue.

In Romans 6:12-14 it's talking about living dead to sin and alive to God. it says,

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:12-14)

Because of God's steadfast love, we don't have to be tormented by our pasts.

We don't have to be tormented by our sin because we can live as those who are under grace. We can live as those who trust that God knew what he was doing when he rescued us. He wasn't fooled; he didn't think that we were somehow better than we were, but he's always known our past. He has always known our sin, and his love for us has always been steadfast.

So if you find yourself tormented by your past today, if you feel like the past sins of yesterday or of 10 years ago still haunt you, still try to put shame on you, still try to heap condemnation on you for what God has already forgiven, I invite you to bring that into conversation with God. Release that burden to him and hear what his love speaks over you.
And here's our question to ask God,

God, you know my past and you know my sin, help me know more of your steadfast love. What do you want to show me?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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