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Forgiven

    Everyone makes mistakes. We all are born with the nature to sin, and we do so quite frequently. Most of us have done some pretty awful things in our lifetime. It is so tempting to be caught up with everything we've done in the past and to hate ourselves for it. We can live a lifestyle of guilt, shame, and regret. Or we can live drenched in grace and be changed into the image of Jesus. 

    We can fool ourselves into thinking it is a nobel thing to feel guilty about what we've done and to stew on it. Let me just tell you-- it isn't. Focusing on our past wrongs and how terrible we are is an insult to what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus died to set us free from our sins, don't act like you're still a slave to them. The funny thing is, when we focus on our sins, we sin more. Where we are looking dictates where we are going, no matter how bad we feel about it. 

    Yes, we are supposed to acknowledge what we have done is sin. We repent to Jesus and He forgives us. Then we stop feeling bad and thinking about it and we move forward. The most important thing is this life is to keep pressing forward towards Jesus. You can't do that when you are stuck looking at what's behind. Focus on Him and what He has for your future, not on the mistakes in your past. Forget about your sins because Jesus already has. You are forgiven! 

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (ESV)

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (ESV)
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (ESV)

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (ESV)

Jeremiah 31:34 “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.” (HCSB)
Isaiah 43:19, 25 Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (ESV)

Philippians 3:13-14 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (ESV)

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