Our church opens our doors for two hours every Saturday in January so we can gather to pray. I just returned from tonight’s session, and I returned with a word from Him to me – and you.
“Let the wind of the Holy Ghost sweep away your attachment to your failures.”
For years, I battled a tendency to not let go of my failures, to keep beating myself up for them even after I’d repented and received God’s forgiveness. I broke the worst of that tendency a few years back when God rebuked me. As He reminded me, if I were to criticize and berate one of His kids the way I was attacking myself He’d call me out for sin. And, obviously, He then reminded me that I am one of His kids too – and it was still sin.
What He said tonight hit me in a fresh way. God specializes in that, you know. If you don’t fully understand the first time, He’ll say it differently. In this one sentence He said so much!
- The Holy Ghost has the power to sweep away those attachments if we let Him.
- They are our attachments. Those failures aren’t attached to us; we’re attached to them. They’re nothing but memories and have no power on their own. The devil can toss them up in our faces, but as long as we’re not attached to them, they’ll slide right off and hit the floor, powerless.
- We must choose to let the Holy Ghost remove them. Then we must decide, every minute of every day, if necessary, to refuse to pick those threads up again. We can: We can either pick them back up and get attached (and attacked) all over again, or we can refuse to ever touch them again. It’s not easy, but it is doable.
God says so! Here’s some proof.
No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
Philippians 3:13-14 NLT (emphasis mine)
Paul, of all people, had things he could have refused to forgive himself for, mistakes from his past that he might have permitted to drag him down. He chose to forget the past and only look forward.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
Hebrews 12:1 NLT (emphasis mine)
“Let us strip off every weight that slows us down,” the teacher says. Yes, that definitely includes those past mistakes, even the huge ones. If they (or anything else) slow us down in our pursuit of God, they’ve got to go!
And…
He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
Psalm 103:12 NLT
If He’s removed the sins, they’re gone. Only the memories of those sins remain, and we have no business digging them up or entertaining them if the devil tries to do the digging. If God removes our sins so completely, it stands to reason that He removes our mistakes, big ones and small ones, as well.
Be at peace. Let the Holy Spirit rid you of those attachments forever.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C