That Was Then
Almost every morning, God wakes me up with a Christian song. This morning the song was “That was Then, This is Now.” It’s a tune encouraging Christians to forget the past and say goodbye to the old, because we’ve been “remade by grace” and forgiven.
But even though we are new creations, often times the past comes back to haunt us, doesn’t it?
Last night I was at a concert in the park, listening to some oldies but goodies from my college years. You can’t help but think about the past when you hear songs from the past. There are great memories, and some not so great. There are people you want to remember, and people you want to forget, but there they are again, surfacing in your mind.
That was then. God has forgotten our past, so why can’t we move on?
A harlot named Rahab never looked back. When Israelite spies entered her condo, embedded in the wall of Jericho, she assisted them by hiding them from authorities. When the King of Jericho interrogated her about the spies’ whereabouts, she stretched the truth to save them.
Rahab asked for one thing in return, that the Israelites would remember her and her family when they laid siege on the city. Rahab also made a profession of faith when she said, “For the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:11).
Rahab was a “lady of the evening,” yet when she walked out of Jericho, she was guided by the “Light of the World.” Because believed in the one true God, he transformed her into a new person. Rahab is mentioned in the lineage of Jesus, and her memory is plastered onto the “Faith Hall of Fame” in Hebrews 11.
When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are not the people we used to be. He doesn’t rewind our life DVD, and shake his head at our old behavior. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done, who we’ve associated with, or what we thought back then. God wiped the board clean, and we don’t want to mark it up again with regrets from old days.
Is there a past memory, or person you can’t let go of? Is there someone in your life who you can’t seem to forgive? Look at them through Christ’s eyes, because the old is gone. That was then.
“So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). (LBW)