† Isaiah 38:13 I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. 14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me. 15 What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. 16 O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. 17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

In the recent message called “What Evidences Will Convict You?”, I mentioned personal secrets and that one thing that we cannot keep secret is our relationship with God as the followers of Jesus. But what if those closely kept secrets are affecting a believer’s life? Whether the secrets are about present sinful habits or they are secrets about things in one’s past that haunt and condemn a Christian, there is a solution; the solution to both these things (present sin and past sins that still whisper to us) is the cross that Jesus died on.

The cross is not just a religious icon but it is literally infused with power by God, and therefore effective in the redemption of our souls for all our born again days. The power of the cross reaches across the millennia and all the way to your mind and heart today.

† 1 Corinthians 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel [Heaven’s “good news” proclamation]: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect (neutralized, be emptied of its power). 18 For the preaching of the cross [years after Jesus died on it] is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

† Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

† Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Over the 26 years of this my formal and front-line teaching ministry I have covered the power of the cross many times—and will allude to it again today because the cross that Jesus died on is the genesis (the starting place) of the power of God to redeem and change lives.

If you are born again from Heaven, it is because of the shedding of the blood of Jesus and His death on Calvary’s cross nearly 2,000 years ago. Your transformation into becoming “holy as He is holy” reaches back to the power of that event, if you will resort to the power of the cross for it to bring death to the sinful nature in you and me and thereby release the victory that is the Life of Jesus Christ born within us at our new birth.

I remarked that Christians are haunted by the secrets of their yesterdays. Although some secrets have complicated ramifications in order to get completely free of them, a believer must be taught that he or she is not to continually carry the convictions of past sin all the days of their lives here on the earth. We are to allow the power of the cross to once and for all exorcize the mental demons that haunt us and be set free of the guilt.

If you have been forgiven and washed by the blood of Jesus of your sins, if you believe that by faith, you must let that same faith set you free of guilt and shame where there is no shame or condemnation before God. Are we greater than God to hold such things against ourselves? No, we are not! God has forgiven us and will not remember those things, and nor should we—the hauntings of our past sins are a device of our fleshly nature and the enemies of our souls.

† Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. . . 8: 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

† Psalm 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies. . . 10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.

† Micah 7:18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. 19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

That’s what is happening in the lives of so many children of God today that have been born again, been forgiven and washed clean by the precious blood of Jesus, and promised eternal life, but who live each day with what bad things he or she did in their past. Our lives of peace and joy by the Holy Ghost are crippled and shriveled because we do not know how to or will not forgive ourselves. We can be set free from the self-inflicted injuries of sin and how it has crippled our spiritual lives.

I hope that you can hear what I am about to say next loud and clear and that you will meditate on it for about the next 30 days: If we will believe it, if we will embrace it, if we will walk in the power of this fact, before God you and I have NO past before the cross.

Where God is concerned, our personal history only begins at the cross on that day when you and I confessed faith in Jesus and we were forgiven; our past record of wrongs was washed out of existence by His shed blood at the cross. It is on the day we were born again from above that we began to live—nothing exists of our pre-cross days in the mind and records of Almighty God.

† Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. . . 5: 24 … they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

† Galatians 6:14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. 16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

† Colossians 1:10 . . . walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; 12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. . . 21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. . .

Since your new birth, if you still carry guilt and shame before God, it is because you have not forgiven yourself as God has. Any guilt you have continued to carry of the memories of those things of your past are like the chaff on the wheat kernel that must be broken off and blown into the fire leaving only the valuable lessons to be learned from such things.

When the things of our past have been repented of and by faith you believe that you have been forgiven by God, if you need to, take an additional step to free yourself from the guilt and shame of past sin, then you should before the Lord “formally declare your abandonment of the negative influences of those memories” in Jesus name; renounce the lingering guilt and shame of those things. By faith, see those bad things burned up as the chaff they are and deny them any more of guilt’s pain evermore.

Many years ago the Lord helped me to face such things. As a result of that help and for my own good, I wrote this down: “Lord, when I have sinned and repent of it and I am washed clean again in Your sight by the precious blood of Jesus, except for the lessons to be learned, remind me to also renounce the guilt and shame of those things that they not be a hindrance to my spiritual peace and joy in my relationship with You.”

† Ephesians 4:22 ...put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed (renovated) in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on [wear] the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

† Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Let me put a finer point on this but with more to say in a second part. Many believers are humiliated before God (not by God) by the condemning memories of past sins—sins that have been forgiven and washed from the records of their lives. A Christian can be intimidated before God (and others sometimes) by the acts of their past that happened before repenting of them as demanded by what happened on the Calvary’s cross. This is not to be so!

Once being born again, some of our past sins can be shameful and painful to remember and have the sure affect of hindering us from not only growing spiritually but also having peace with God from our perspective.

This is a self-inflicted problem in our thought life that we are not meant to live with, and for some, this problem can be the reason sickness and disease can arise in our bodies (psychosomatic). We must accept the forgiveness of God, put our sins on the death side of the cross, and set our minds and hearts free to live always on the resurrection side; the life side of the cross without condemnation and shame.

† Hebrews 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18 Now where remission (from “sent away”; pardon of, freedom from) of these is, there is no more offering for sin [nothing more must be done about them in God’s view]. 19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And having an high priest over the house of God; 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience *[not only from sinful thoughts but guilt from past but forgiven sins]*, and our bodies [Gr. soma: the wholeness of our body; from soza/to be saved/healed/delivered/made whole] washed with pure water [by the Word]. 23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

Psycho somatic: : involving the mind-body connection; concerned with bodily symptoms casued by mental or emotional disturbances.

We will continue this hard look at the sins that haunt believers long, long after they have been forgiven by God and washed clean of them. This is the thought I want you to live with this week: Except for the lessons to be learned from past sins (our temper-tantrums, thefts, fornications or adulteries, adulterous thoughts, hatred, violence), if you have been to the cross in genuine repentance, been forgiven of them, and they have been expunged (erased completely) from the record of your life before God—you have no past on that side of the cross; it is gone and needs to be from your consciousness. The results are joy by the Holy Ghost and peace in your heart and mine.

Having been truly born again, YOU HAVE NO HISTORY BEFORE THE CROSS; think about that, it is true. Let us each be at peace with ourselves by what Jesus has done for us at the cross. Until next week, I leave you with this passage:

† Psalm 85:8 I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly. 9 Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. 10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.