I'm super thankful that He is God, and I am not. I cannot fathom how He does it. He allows me to peer into the hearts of a few, and the stark contrast between what He sees and the shame mankind bears is enough to break my heart. I think I understand as fully as I can in this flesh why God is determined to toss us in the fire. He cannot rest while we reflect something other than the glory He intended at creation.
Around the time of the initial prayer, I upset a woman I had previously served with by suggesting her push to "leave the past in the past was masking a wound that had not been healed. Since Jesus had forgiven her sins, she argued that her prior life was irrelevant, and God wouldn't have her digging up old hurts that bring her shame.
To some degree, this justified my position. If Christ has truly set us free, why would the admission of a forgiven past bring forth shame or embarrassment?
My persistence in presenting a complete history as a testimony of His grace has gotten me in trouble. This woman is not the only one to cut me off for suggesting a need for healing. I am amazed how vocal Christians are in offering grace to new believers, and how unwilling we are to disclose the measure of grace we have received. Rather than encouraging a new believer by presenting ourselves as a work of transformation, we project ourselves as lifelong adherents of a law.
But why should it matter? Why dig up a painful past?
First, our salvation does not immediately rid our lives of destructive patterns of behavior. For example, a woman who was sexually abused prior to salvation does not instantly gain an understanding of how to trust men. She has lies to dispel, and spiritual truths to be revealed to view herself, her sexuality, and trustworthy men through a clear lens. The work of salvation has offered her the gift of His Spirit, but the work of consecration can redeem her wounds as a testimony of His grace and healing.
Secondly, it is difficult to think ministerially while nursing internal pain or shame, whether saved or not. How often do we disqualify ourselves from His service because of a fear or insecurity established while living in darkness? Personally, this has occurred too often to count. What happens when we allow God to bring our wounds to the surface for healing? He is able to take the same circumstance that led to our fear and redeem it as one more reason to shout of His grace.
Our God is not a sadist, nor am I. He does not have us experience pain without a plan for restoration. But He gives greater weight to the big picture, and He does not desire for any believer to be satisfied with salvation alone. Our lives were meant to reflect the wonderful love of our Creator: a love that cannot ignore the potential of a life fully redeemed. Let us accept the fullness of His grace, for we are not condemned on account of the forgiven past He still longs to heal.
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, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says,
“In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.”
I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2)
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