What in Your Past is Holding You Back?

Exodus 1; Exodus 2; Psalm 88; Luke 21
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Scripture

Moses Flees to Midian

Exodus 2

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"

14 The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."
15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Observation

If you murder someone and are convicted of that crime in our country it automatically disqualifies you from voting in the election of a president. A person with a felony would not get to vote. And for sure if you murdered someone it would disqualify you from running for president of the United States. But Moses murdered the Egyptian and yet God still used him to lead His people out of Egypt. In fact, God used King David even after he had killed Uriah and had committed adultery Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. God took the Christian killing Paul and made him a missionary to reach the world.

So do you have a past that keeps getting in the way of you being used by God?

If you do then you need to wake up to the fact that God wants to forgive and forget your past sin and He wants to use you in his kingdom’s work. Two of God’s promises come to my mind as I write this, 1John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

I had a friend while I was in Seminary in Ft. Worth and this friend had his marriage fail right in the middle of his seminary studies. His wife had left him for another seminary student taking his 3 children and he never saw his children again. When I met him he had already remarried a girl that had a young child and they adopted another. This friend told me that because of his failed marriage he could never be used again to pastor a church and he told me that he was going to dedicate his life to working at a Gospel tract publishing company and in that way he would still be serving God.

My friend couldn’t forgive himself for this past sin of his failed marriage. I told him that God could still use him to pastor churches and with a little encouragement he took a pastorate up in the state of Ohio. After serving for many years faithfully and successfully in Ohio he once again returned to serve as pastor in Texas until he recently retired. He thought that his past sin had disqualified him for service. But God had other plans for this humble man. All of us have a past. All of us live with failures and all of us have made mistakes, but God is in the business of taking broken and humbled men and women to reach others for Christ. Little wonder why the Bible says that Moses was the most humble man to ever walk the earth.

Application

I will look for someone today that needs to be encouraged to be all that God wants them to be.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for bringing people into my life that helped me know your plan for my life. Thank you for not giving me what I deserve. I am a sinner, but my past sin has been forgiven and forgotten by you and my future sin even though it will make you sad will not keep me from having a Father-son relationship with you. I am your child. Lord, use me to help someone else understand your great love and forgiveness. Amen.


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