“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
There is a saying that Christians like to use, “When the devil reminds you about your past, you remind him of his future.” It’s meant to assist people with the inner emotional struggles that they experience when contemplating the deeds done in the flesh before they came to the Lord for the salvation of their souls, the memories that all of us have of the worldly life that we relished in and embraced before that blessed moment. These this cute little saying is speaking to are those that occasionally still feel great remorse over those things they did, the thoughts they had, and for most when they are brought to mind they create not only remorse, but, at least they should, a great hatred of that person they once were, but that is not the intent of that supposed reminder that Satan supposedly brings to our mind of our past, it is to cause continual remorse so that the servant of Christ is unable to perform any further functions for the glory of God.
Those who live in the past can see no joy in the present and have little hope for the future.
I call it a cute little saying for this reason, and I would ask you to ponder it at length, how would Satan know anything about your past? That saying infers only two possibilities, one would be that he and his demonic forces have the ability to either move through time, or at least into the past, or two that they have been following you around for the entirety of your life. There is a third of course, but it is one that I do not believe needs mentioning, for I see it as impossible, that Satan can read your mind, that he has access to your thoughts and memories, which would infer that he can enter into the body of the born-again believer, which is impossible, for darkness cannot enter into the light, and we have the Holy Spirit within us.
I have no Scripture reference for the possibility that Satan can move through time before it has occurred or into the past to review, as it were, the life of a man of God, a person who has been born-again, and so this statement must be looked at with doubt.
The other point is also a statement of conjecture, but is at least debatable, for if we are predestined before the foundation of the world as Ephesians 1:4 states, then there must needs be a visible identity, so to speak, in the Spiritual realm of those who have been saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ upon them from the moment of their birth. Envision it as you will, a sign, a glowing light emanating from them, a mask upon us, in either case we are chosen by the Lord before the foundation of the world, and thereby have, in a sense, a “keep off” sign of some sort placed upon us, no different than the ledge placed around Job. (Job 1:10)
Both of these points are of course no more than conjecture, and must be contemplated as such, for I see no validation of them in the Word of God, but they bring to bear the saying that this short poorly written letter to you is addressing, our past before Christ, and the ways that we view it today in our walk with Him. To those of you who will not forgive yourself for those deeds done, I offer this, if Christ has forgiven you of them, yet you will not forgive yourself, you are in effect saying that His forgiveness is not sufficient, in this area of your life, that you must continually pay over and over for those sins against Him, and that my friends, while it may not be a sin of commission, is indeed disrespecting the sacrifice that was paid for you.
You have been forgiven, it is doubtful that Satan knows anything at all about your past, it is you, not him that is reminding yourself about your sinful past, it is you, not Christ that condemns you. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)
Do not look at who you once were with any desire but stop living a life of remorse and regret for who you once were, you are no longer that person. Being transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2) does not happen overnight, it is a process that involves not only staying in the Word of God every day, of seeking His face continually, of submitting to the will of the Holy Spirit in all humility and without embarrassment lifting up the name of Jesus Christ to all we meet, but it is a continual acknowledgement that who we once were is not who we are today and who the Lord is leading us to be like, His own Son. (Col. 1:13)
Forgive yourself, when those thoughts of who you once were come to mind, give the glory to God that He is giving you the strength to never return to who you were, that you have been forgiven.
