His Past

"The past should not be a place where we live, but something from which we learn."

God is a redeemer and a restorer - we need to allow Him to be both. 

He can redeem the past and restore what was lost. 

Freeing ourselves from the traps of anxiety, anger, depression, fear etc, frees our children from dealing with them in their lives.

"God says we are to cry out for deliverance, walk in His ways, proclaim His truth, and then we will find freedom from our past."

Sometimes there are levels of freedom to go through. 

You make think you've gotten free of something and it will come back leaving you feeling like you're back where you started. 

--If you've been walking with the Lord, you are probably moving into a deeper level of liberty that God wants to work in your life. --

*Nathan doesn't struggle with anything from his past. It amazes me, I on the other hand, feel like a wreck most days . . . . so if your hubby does, you should read her other advice in this chapter.

     Dear Jesus, I pray that you let me let go of the past completely. Deliver me from any hold it has on me. Help me to putt off my former conduct and habitual ways of thinking about it and be renewed in my mind. Enlarge my understanding to see how You make all things new. Show me a fresh, Holy Spirit-inspired way of relating to negative things that have happened. Give me a mind of Christ so that I can clearly discern Your voice of the past. When I do hear those hold voices, enable me to rise up and shut them down with the truth of Your Word. Pour forgiveness into my heart so that bitterness, resentment, revenge, and unforgiveness will have no place there. Many I regard the past as only a history lesson and not a guide for daily life. Where the past has become an unpleasant memory, I pray you redeem it and bring  life out of it. Bind up my wounds (Psalm 147:3) and restore my soul (Psalm 23:3). Help me to release the past so that I will not live in it, but will learn from it, break out of it, and move into the future You have for me."

Isaiah 43:18-19 (New International Version, ©2010)

¹⁸ “Forget the former things;

   do not dwell on the past.

¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!

   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

   and streams in the wasteland.

Ephesians 4:22-24 (New International Version, ©2010)

²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.