A new leaf

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Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Ever made a really dumb decision? I know I can list a few, perhaps even more than a few. We all make mistakes sometimes, some 'dumber' than others, with some standing out as the 'dumbest' of the 'dumb'. These probably have led to some pretty deep hurts - hurts that seem to hang around long after the decision was made and done. What do we do with the deep hurts that are part of our past mistakes? We can repent, 'turn a new leaf', and move on, or we can harbor those hurts, rehashing the guilt of those decisions over and over again. 

When the hurts of the past aren't in the past, we find the rehearsal of those hurts to sometimes be worse than the original 'misstep' was in the first place. God wants to do a work within us of actually getting those hurts into our past and having them reside there permanently! Those hurts, continually rehearsed, will hinder us from moving forward in life until God affords us the pathway to finally let go of them. We need to follow that path he lays out.

God's voice is gentle - it isn't accusatory. If the voice of accusation is holding you back today, it is time to change who it is you are listening to! God's voice is sometimes no more than a whisper, but it is calling us onward, not back to the past. If God asks us to deal with something that we thought was in the past, it is only because we didn't fully deal with it at the time he asked us to let it go. God doesn't rehearse our sins, so we shouldn't either. He covers them with the blood of Jesus, removing all the stain of our guilt, and gives us a new pathway to follow. 

It is possible we haven't been ready to let go of the past. We hold onto something, even when it isn't doing us any good, bringing us down and loading us up with all kinds of guilty feelings. I want to tell you clearly today that God is ready to transform you right there. Right where your missteps got you into so much difficulty and caused you so much hurt. Listen for that 'whisper' of his gentle voice today and see what he will do as you respond to his voice. You don't have to live under that load any longer. Just sayin!

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