Identity

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son toe me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles . . . They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”

And they glorified God because of me.

Gal. 1:13-24 (English Standard Version)

Rewind

If it were possible, would we eliminate the bad stuff from our past? I think so. If we could, wouldn’t we highlight/select incidents in our past and hit the “delete” button? My thought is “You bet!” And, I suspect everyone’s answer would be the same! Who doesn’t have an embarrassing or painful memory in their past they would like to be rid of forever? Who doesn’t carry guilt from a misdeed, misspoken word, or failure in their past? Personally, I can think of a dozen mistakes in my own past without very much effort at all. I wish they hadn’t happened and I wish I could undo the harm and embarrassment that came from them. But of course, I can’t.

            We imagine our present lives would be so much better if we hadn’t made some of those mistakes. We are like game players rehashing a hand of cards or dominoes: “If I just hadn’t trumped in so early, I could have caught that last trick and we would have won the hand,” a player might say. Life is always lived perfectly in retrospect. Someone once said that our hindsight is always 20/20.

            There are no rewind buttons in this life. We have to live with our mistakes and shortcomings. We all make them, we all regret them, but of course we don’t have to let them rule or destroy us. In fact, in Christ there is no past failure that can destroy us, without our letting it. Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life spoke to the bad things in our past when he wrote, “We are products of our past but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”

            Being a prisoner of our past isn’t always about failure though. Sometimes our successes can hold us prisoner as well. There are few things sadder than people who are only able to live in the past. There is the athlete or entertainer whose life is just one long memory after another about glory-days from a stellar career decades earlier. They are so centered on their past successes and triumphs they are unable to live in the present.

            George Santayana suggested that those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Our stories are important, and we all have our own story. We should be able to share our failures and successes with our children, because in them are found the closest we can come to perfect wisdom. The greatest usefulness to be found in our individual pasts comes in the form of lessons we learn from them. Some of those lessons are painful; some are pleasant. I remember the amazing, wonderful taste of my first pizza, dripping with molten mozzarella. (I was in college when I first experienced pizza. It was at the old Italian Inn on East Lancaster in Fort Worth.) I also remember the pain from learning how similar that molten mozzarella is to napalm-how it tends to stick to the roof of the mouth and just keep on burning!

            There is a biblical perspective we need to consider when thinking about our past—we are what we are today, because of what we were, and what we did THEN! Like the Bible characters of old, I am shaped by my past. Consider the shameful episodes in the lives of the Bible characters: Abraham lying about Sarah; David committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband Uriah; Moses murdering the Egyptian; Paul arresting and delivering Christians to be tortured and killed; Peter denying Jesus. Would Paul have been the kind of witness for Christianity that he became had he not been so dedicated to the destruction of it in his younger days? Would he have been able to fully understand the idea of a new creature in Christ without having become one? Would the power of Christ’s reconciling work been so real if Paul’s activities against the Way had been less committed and less violent? Could Peter have been as effective in speaking of the universal priesthood of the believers had he not himself denied Jesus three times in the garden? Would he have been the same man without the humbling experience of seeing his own character in a face-to-face encounter with the man he was, filled with arrogance and pride?

            I am what I am today, because of what I was yesterday. I know that today I am forgiven. When I think of the character and depth of my sin, I can better appreciate the scope of God’s grace. I have a clear sense of what it means to be reconciled to God because I can remember very well what it felt like to be alienated from Him. I know what it means to be alive today, because I know personally what it was like to be dead in sin.

            In light of all that, I know that if I die today, there is a place reserved for me in the presence of God. And I am really glad! This is the central message of God’s work with us – no matter what we have done, no matter what we have been, God calls us to his grace. He will change us; he will transform us. The ministry of Christ is transformation, rescue and reconciliation.

“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith-more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”   1 Peter 1:3-9 (ESV).               

                                    Because I love you, and because He loves us!         

                                                                                    Roger