Who you are in Christ..forgetting the past.

Who you are in Christ..forgetting the past

I want you all to understand what the Word of God says to each of you who believe in Jesus Christ.
For to long the enemy has had his way in convincing the body of Christ, that we are not in victory. The enemy has fought long and hard to keep each of us enslaved in our past. Tonight I’m here to set you free by the Word of God. If God wrote the Bible, then we should take it as truth, should we not?
Then how come many of us are living life far below what the Word declares for us?
This is not going to be a message of condemnation, but rather a pointing to the Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus do on the Cross? If we are accurately dividing the Word of Truth, then all of scripture will back up the message tonight.
I believe that Jesus conquered sin,.. did He not?
I believe that Jesus conquered death,..did He not?
I believe that He also conquered sickness..did HE not?
I believe that Jesus overcame Hell and the grave.
I believe that He made ALL things new.
These are all PROMISES made in the Word to those who believe.
The problem with us, is we live according to how we feel, not according to scripture.
If we have had a bad day, then we live according to our feelings, and everyone around us suffers with our bad attitude. We haven’t learned to take authority over our circumstances and declare the goodness of God in our lives. Instead of looking at all the great promises in His Word, promises we have been given, we gripe and complain about our circumstances and how we have no victory.
Well Jesus is called the High Priest of Our confession. If we are confessing things NOT according to the Word, then Jesus cannot make them happen. The Word says “let God be True and every man a lier.” This means if we are living and proclaiming things that are in direct contrast to His Word, He will not work against His Word. We have effectively shut Him out of that area in our lives.
My desire is for us as believers to begin to recognize who we are called to be, and how we are called to live; which is Free in Christ.
My Bible says, “that whomever the Son sets Free is Free indeed.” To that I say, “Glory Hallelujah!” and ‘Amen!’
Now from scripture lets look at the life of the Apostle PAUL.
In the book of Acts we read that Saul of Tarsus was very zealous for God. In fact he was so zealous he was attempting to erase (that means kill), every believer in Jesus from his area of influence, his ‘district’ and even areas outside of his district.
Lets read this account of Saul in action from Acts 7:58-8:1-3

Then in Acts 9:1,2. We read that he went so far as to get letters from the High Priest in order to arrest those in Damascus approx. 140 miles away. Now that is zealous! Even if it was misplaced.

I want you to notice that Saul was a man who persecuted Jesus. His people, the body of Christ.
He was present at Sephens death and imprisoned others.
Now I hope most of you realize that Saul became a believer, He had an encounter with Jesus that changed him. It not only changed him as a person, but also his name was changed..he became Paul.
Jesus says that all who believe in Him are given a new name on a white stone.
We have a new name and a white stone. New identity=new name.
Rev.2:17 White stone=clean, pardoned.
A white stone was used to cast your vote in favour of a persons innocence.
A black stone was used to cast your vote as guilty.


As a believer you have a new name, and are cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
Now back to Saul/Paul. We read that after he was healed, he immediately preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God....Acts 9:20-22.

Paul became a new creation 2Cor. 5:17 and he immediately began to proclaim freedom from the past.
Paul learned the secret to living in victory was believing what Jesus said. Jesus called Him a chosen vessel Acts 9:15. And in Acts 22:14-16 we read his commissioning. We became a ‘sent one’ an apostle.

Paul faced more challenges, persecutions and hardships, than most of us will, and yet he declared in Phill. 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’
What was Paul’s secret to living victorious? How did he strengthen himself, and have such spiritual success?
The secret is found in Phill. 3:13,14. As you read, notice the italicized words are not in the original text. This is how it reads, 'Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended (or laid hold of) but one thing, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.'
You see the secret..Paul was writing to us and revealing to us the one thing he understood or had mastered, or learned to do; this was to forget the past. Forgetting the past is the key to living in victory in the present.
The Word of God declares that Jesus is Faithful and True Rev 19:11. As our High Priest, Jesus has cleansed us from the handwriting of ordinances that were against us, blotting them out...Col 2:14.
Paul had to overcome his past and put it behind him, supernaturally declaring the promises of Jesus, the Word of God over himself.
God, once we have asked Him to forgive us of our sins, declares us to be cleansed. We become the Righteousness of God in Christ. 2 Cor. 5:21
1 John 1:9 says, ‘ If we confess our sins, He is Faithful and Just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.
These verses are key to victory. Believe what the Word declares to be true about all those who believe.
Do not let the devil deceive you into living according to your past. The past is dead and gone.
Paul had to overcome his memories of past sins, murder and persecution,. Jailing those who confessed Jesus as Lord and Saviour, overseeing the death of Stephen.
I’m sure the devil was trying his best to bring him into condemnation mode and disqualify him from his True Calling which he had received. Can you imagine how the devil must have been trying to remind him of his past atrocities, to make him feel unworthy to be a minster of the gospel?
Yet somehow Paul defeated those memories. He clearly found a way to live according to the gospel of Jesus Christ which he preached.. Freedom..the good news..where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty. 2 Cor. 3:17,18. We are being transformed into His image day by day as we look at Him in the Word, and in the Spirit. Word=Scriptures Spirit=Holy Spirit inspired visions and gifts
James 1:25 Look into the perfect law of Liberty. The Word of God which sets you free in Christ Jesus, for He is the Word. See John 1:1 ...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
2 Cor.10:4-6, ‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.’

We don’t just sit around waiting for our thoughts to come into alignment with Gods’ Word, it is a battle. The devil would like to keep you under oppression and unable to accomplish Gods work in this earth. The adversary continually tries to keep us believers under a cloak of oppression and condemnation. But thanks be to God, Roman 8:1 makes this declaration, “Therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
We battle negative thoughts with the Truth of Gods Word. It isn’t enough to battle unscriptural condemning thoughts with positive scriptural thoughts. You must speak the Word of God over your life out loud. This stops your mind from thinking, and it has to listen to what your saying. So declare the Truth of what Gods word says about you!
I hope you’ve noticed most of these scriptures tonight were from Paul’s writings.
He knew the secret to living in victory. He took revenge on every memory, mental image, concept or imagination that contradicted what the Word of God said about him as a reborn, righteous, new creation in Christ.
If you want to live in victory then we need to begin to do as Paul did, take captivity every thought that exalts itself against Gods Word for your life.
We need to renew our minds through the washing of the Word.(Eph. 5:25,26.).
When we became believers in Jesus and made Him our King, our Spirits were reborn, however our minds are still carnal. Our minds need renewing in the scriptures because faith comes from hearing and hearing the Word of God. (Romans 10:17) Read your bible out loud! So your ears hear the Word of God, and your spiritual ears hear the Word of God at the same time. (If they are up to it do the test.. plug your ears and say Jesus out loud, the spirit hears!.)
Our mind will try to keep bringing us back into the same old cycles of abuse, sin and defeat. This is because it hasn’t been reborn as our Spirit has, if we don’t renew the mind with Gods Word, it will feed us with thoughts and fears from the past.
Our lives are shaped by what we think, which then translates into what we decide is right or wrong, and then our decisions lead us into what we do. These thoughts from the past then determine our future. If we continually dig up the dirt from the past then we will be buried by it.
Rather forgetting the past, we reach forth to those things which are before, I PRESS on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phill. 3:14.
We either live according to the Word or the whispering lies of the enemy. We need to wield the Power of the Sword of God, which is the Word of God.
In Hebrews 4:12 we read ‘For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of SOUL and SPIRIT, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Soul=thoughts of the mind, emotions, intellect
Spirit=the believer inside you, the Eternal life force keeping you alive
If we don’t use the power of the Word to supernaturally forget those things which are behind we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past again, and again, and again.
You must forget the way God forgets..Psalm 103:12..put it as far from you as the east is from the west. Root it our of your memory by the blood of the Lamb, and cleanse your conscience of it forever by FAITH.
Come into agreement with the Word, believe what the Bible declares about your past life. It is dead and gone! Every sin is cleansed! Everything the devil did to you and through is gone!
2 Cor 5:17. THEREFORE, IF ANYONE IS IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION; OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW. AMEN!