I have been through so much turmoil because of my decisions to follow what I wanted rather than following God. I am held accountable for my actions, but God doesn’t want me to dwell on the mistakes of my past. He wants to help me get better and when I do it in my own strength, I only get frustrated because I am not using the help of the Holy Spirit to get away from my sin. Rather than running to Him, I ran from Him and hid because of my sin and shame. But rather than being mad at me, all He has done all day is show me that He’s there and just wants me to turn to Him.

“But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

               I heard Him whisper this specific verse to me on my way to work and then saw it a few minutes later on the back of a semi-truck. He really cares about us sinning because of what it does to our hearts and our relationship with Him. Holy Spirit just wants us to thrive and knows best what things we ought not to do because it wages war on our hearts and souls.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 1 Peter 2:11 (ESV)

It is because we are no longer in the world that followers of Christ should abstain and avoid doing things the world does. This doesn’t just include abstaining from things that God freed you from but the way you treat people and look at life. Christ-followers are not of the world, and it makes us feel horrible when we go out and pretend to be like the world. I have made the mistake of going back and doing things God freed me from, and He keeps telling me to stop looking back at what happened weeks or years ago but to stay with Him in this present moment and look to Him to help me out of my current situation.

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
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.” Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV)

               Holy Spirit knows that dwelling on the past won’t fix anything, but rather, it will add on to the weight of the current sin, making it heavier than before. He wants to help us get away from the things that hurt us and help us get closer to the One that can help us: Himself. At the end of the day, He chose us, not because of what we could do for Him, but simply because He loves us and wants us to be His children and His ambassadors on this earth. He wants us to walk in love and show other people the light, but we can’t do that as long as we are living in the mistakes of yesterday. The devil knows if he can keep us focused on the past and all the mistakes we’ve made, we won’t have a chance to push forward into the promises God has in store for us. We become bound by our own mistakes or freed by the truth of the immeasurable love of God. He gives us the choice of life or death: death on reliving our pasts or life on living the life He created for us to live.

“But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.” 1 Peter 2:9 (MSG)

“That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’” 1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)

“I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19 (ESV)