If you’ve accepted Jesus as your Savior and Lord AND expressed that faith by being baptized into Christ, you are a forgiven and saved child of God as you walk by faith. It’s no longer about where you have been but where you’re going. It’s not about what you’ve done but what Jesus is doing in you now. It’s not about the bad influence others had on you then but the influence Holy Spirit has on you now. It’s not about being dead in your sin but being alive in Christ. It’s not about God condemning you but God forgiving you. It’s not about you living in guilt but rather you living in grace.
The more we understand that Jesus hates sin but loves us sinners the more we want to live for Jesus in gratitude and reverence. If we soak, sulk, and wallow in our past transgressions we cannot move forward with Jesus as Lord.
The Apostle Paul was guilty of great sin but when Jesus washed away his sins upon his faith response of baptism his entire life did a 180 turn! He later wrote, “For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” (I Corinthians 15:9-10). Paul did not forget his past but he did not let it control him either.
Read John 3:1-8; II Corinthians 5:14-17. Then listen to You Are More by Tenth Avenue North.
John 3:1-8
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus at night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a person be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-17
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose on their behalf.
Therefore from now on we recognize no one by the flesh; even though we have known Christ by the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.