How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1 (NIV)
Many of us live in the good of blessings that have come to us from the past. Some of us live with great evils that have afflicted us early on in our lives. Some of us struggle with what we have done. Others struggle with what was done to them. Regeneration does not change the past. It does change the future.
If you are in Christ, your past no longer defines you. Paul describes the lifestyles from which God had redeemed these believers. Some had sinned sexually, while others were thieves, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers, and idolaters. Paul says, “That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
If you are in Christ, your past is no longer defining for you. The future is! Listen to how John puts it: “What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” That’s the future for you in Christ! And “everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2, 3).
React to this: “If you are in Christ, your past is no longer defining for you.”
