Come Out of the Prison!

School is off to a good start. The devil tried to throw a monkey wrench in the first couple of weeks, but he is a liar and a defeated foe. Period!

Okay... Right now, I am studying the book of Galatians, and it is no wonder why God has me studying Galatians. Every time I’m led to do a study on a book, I know that God is trying to show me something. Just in these first couple of verses in the first chapter, the one thing that I got was that the Apostle Paul, whom God gave the revelation of the New Covenant, had to stand up for what God had called him to be, even when people tried to tell him who he was.

Paul had done a lot of bad things in his life. He even killed people because of his beliefs. But God got a hold of his heart. And when God got a hold of his heart, Paul still struggled. He said, “The things that I don’t want to do, I wind up doing. And the things I know I ought to do, I don’t do.”

If this wonderful, strong man of God struggled in his walk with God—if, in his past, he had done horrific things, but God still used him—then Paul had to stand up for what God had done in his life.

Yes, I was this. Yes, I did those things. But I have been delivered! Praise the Lord!

And what I want to say to you and encourage you with is this: We have all sinned. We have all done things we wish we hadn’t said or done. Somehow, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we have gotten ourselves into messes.

Don’t let anybody peg you as that person! Don’t let anybody say and stamp you with a lifetime sentence because of your past mistakes. And even if it just happened yesterday and today is a new day, yesterday is the past.

Do not let anyone put you in a mental and emotional prison. Don’t you dare put yourself in a mental and emotional prison as a Child of God!

As a child of God, when we do things wrong, when we say things wrong, when we sin, we feel bad about it. That is the Holy Spirit convicting us of the sin that we are in. Let it happen. It is a good thing!

That is the Holy Spirit showing you that you are in sin. And if you are a true child of God, you hate sin, and it hurts your heart. That is what leads us and compels us to fall on the Father’s mercy and ask Him for forgiveness.

And we all know, as children of God, that God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.

So, do not let anybody stamp you for life because of past mistakes.

Dust yourself off. Ask God to forgive you. Apologize to the people you think you need to apologize to. Whether they accept your apology or not, that is between them and God.

But you forget those things that are in the past, and you press forward in God. This is the Word of God!

Your past mistakes, whether they were in deed or in word, are just that—they are in the past.

And if you are a child of God, your past wrongs—I don’t care if they just happened yesterday—and you ask God to forgive you, your past mistakes did not negate your Salvation.

Having Jesus as Lord and Savior provides Grace in our lives. And God’s Grace is always sufficient for us. It provides mercy in our lives. And it is of the Lord’s mercies that we who belong to Him are not consumed by our sins.

“For His mercies are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness!”

It was a moment in time. It wasn’t a life sentence.

From that moment when you sinned, when you said or did whatever you did for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit brought that conviction to you. You felt it. You fell on the mercies of God, and you asked Him to forgive you.

You are forgiven!

God Himself takes that sin and places it as far as the east is from the west, and He Himself remembers it no more.

But you know what the devil will do? He will bring people who remember it and try to undo what God has done. They try to bring it back into remembrance when God Himself doesn’t remember it anymore.

Don’t let them do that to you!

It was a moment in time. It did not negate your Salvation because Grace is there. Mercy is there.

Our Father, who is in Heaven, is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins because we have our Faith rooted and grounded in what His Son has done on the Cross of Calvary and in His Resurrection.

We have been set free!

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The conviction comes so that we can fall on that Grace and Mercy that is afforded to us because of what our Lord and Savior did on the Cross.

And my Bible tells me that nothing—and the last time I looked up the word “nothing,” nothing means nothing—can separate us from the love of God.

A past mistake cannot separate us from God’s love.

I don’t care if you fell flat on your face. I have done it many times in my life, and each time, God was faithful and just to forgive me.

Don’t stay in a mental and emotional prison when God has set you free!

We are free indeed!

Even when we make a mistake, we still have the liberty in Christ Jesus to be forgiven.

So do not let mere mortals keep you in a mental and emotional prison. Do not let them keep you bound in that sin because they cannot forgive you.

Mere mortals cannot throw your soul into Hell, nor can they open those pearly gates to let you into Heaven.

What they think about you is irrelevant.

When God forgives you, that is what counts.

So, just like the great Apostle Paul, who did horrible things in his past, who still struggled while walking in Christ and trying to do everything that he knew was right—thank God for His Grace! Thank God for His Mercy! Be who God called you to be in Christ Jesus—Saved, Sanctified and Set Apart... FORGIVEN!

And thank Jesus for being brave and obedient, for going to the Cross for OUR sake, for OUR salvation, for OUR sanctification, and for OUR forgiveness.

You do not have to stay in the past sin. You do not have to stay bound to it.

Even if the devil sends somebody across your path saying, “Girl, you remember what you did? Girl, you know how you used to be…”

They always want to bring up your past.

And when they do that, you say, “Oh, thanks be to God that my Lord and Savior took all of that away from me!”

It’ll shut them up.

Because mere mortals always want to keep you in that prison when Jesus died on that Cross so that you could walk out—and so that you could stay out.

Just because you had a moment in time does not mean it is a life prison sentence, and it does not mean that is who you are for the rest of your life.

You are a child of God. You are forgiven. His Grace and His Mercy are always there for you. His mercies are new every morning.

It was a moment in time.

It was not a life sentence.

Rise up and go forward in the Lord!