I Have Redeemed You

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Today, I want to share with you a story. It was a Friday evening on the 20th of April this year. My family and I had just arrived to my parents’ house. We travel to my parents house, because the wife, the kids and I live approximately an hour and a half from our church. However, my parents live only thirty-five minutes from our church. It is for this cause that we like to travel to my parents house on the weekend so that we do not have to drive a lengthy distance on Sunday. When we arrived to our parents, I had to go to Walmart and buy some batteries for my hair clippers. The batteries were important, because I had to give my boys a haircut. I was backing out of my parents driveway, and as you know many of the modern day vehicles have rear-view cameras on the dash so that the drivers can see behind them without turning around. However, the rear-view cameras are programmed to disappear whenever the driver shifts the car back into drive. The strangest thing happened to me that night when I attempted to shift. That night when I attempted to shift the car back in to drive, the rearview camera never disappeared. I shifted the gear from reverse to drive maybe about four times, and the rear-view camera would never disappear. Finally, I made up my mind that I couldn’t let this circumstance hinder me from going to get the batteries that I needed to cut hair. So, forward I pressed to Walmart. As I turned down the road, I noticed that through the rearview camera I could see every oncoming car that passed by me, and I became more and more anxious every time a car passed. And when I got on the highway, I continued to be distracted by the rearview camera. On the highway my speed increased, and the rearview camera made me more and more anxious. This experience was extremely uncomfortable. I was anxious and nervous. I was down right discombobulated.  However, as I was going through this unnerving experience, I could hear the Lord saying, “Do you see the Danger of looking back?” Do you see the danger of looking back?” That’s when God began to cry “I have redeemed you!” “I have redeemed you!!!” You can’t go the speed of life looking in the rearview. Looking back tends to hurt us more than help us. Often times we look back, we are looking back at a shameful past. We look back at things that cause us to be anxious and undeserving of mercy. We throw ourselves in a pit of guilt so deep that we think that forgiveness is impossible for us. But I have come to warn you of the danger of looking back. If you have prayed the prayer of repentance and you have walked in the ways of Jesus from a place of love, then you are saved. The Bible teaches us that Satan our enemy is an accuser of the brethren. We must become like the apostle Paul. In Philippians 3:12-13-14 Paul says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Child of God! God is calling for you to forget the things behind you. You must forget your past and press towards the high call in Jesus! Press forward in your daily walk with Jesus! Press forward your daily devotion to the Jesus of the Bible! God is calling you to press forward!