Fabolous Friday

Do you have guilt or shame in your life? Do you ever feel like you have a past that is so bad that you feel that God loves you but he couldn't love as much as someone with a good past? Have you ever thought that you did something so bad while you were walking with the Lord that you couldn't be used by him? Do you feel that because your faith isn't as strong as some believers that your not doing right? I know those feelings because I've personally have delt with all of them. Well I'm here today to let you know that we don't have to be held down by any of those thoughts because we serve a God who came down and took the lowly form of a man, who took all our sin and shame with him to the cross so that we could be free of sin and death. Jesus has paid the price for our checkered past, he paid the price so we can be forgiven and freed from our pasts. It wasn't because you deserved it but because he loves us that much.
Now if your anything like me as much as I hear people tell me this I still don't fully believe until I see this stuff work. We as humans need to see examples of this otherwise I feel that it's harder to believe. If we look at the scriptures we see plenty of examples of this. We how Moses killed someone and he didn't tell God yes right away but God still used him to lead his people out of Egypt. We see in all the Old Testament how After God lead his people out of Egypt they constantly were turning their backs on him and worshiping other Gods but God still rescued them and restored their land many times. We see how Peter denied Christ three times and still Jesus told him that he would build his church on him. We also see how Paul use to persecute and murder Christian and God used him to spread the Gospel all over the world and he was responsible for 3/4 of the New Testament. These are just a few examples of people with chechered pasts that God still used and blessed.
My Prayer for today is that we can allow ourselves to be free of guilt and shame and not let our past hold us down. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that whoever is in Christ is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come, so I pray that we can be freed by knowing that we are new in Christ Jesus and we are freed from our past no matter how bad it might have been.So go forth with a sense of peace knowing that you're not what you past was but you are a child of the livng God and that he forgave you and that you can be used by God as long as you are willing to be.