I don’t know what you were in the past, weather it was a drug addict, racist, liar, thief, batterer, abused, backbiter, gossip, pornophile, promiscuous, cowardly, divorced, dropout, atheist, moralistic deist, Christian, etc.

You could even be the pastor who taught about Jesus but didn’t recognize Jesus on the street even when you rubbed shoulders on the subway.

Everybody has a past that defines who we are now. Our tendencies, habits and actions are bred by our former lives. I can’t tell you how each thing in your past defines you, but what I do know is that whatever you once were, but in Christ, you are no longer defined by that.

Whatever the former way, does not have to be your future way.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. – Galatians 1:13

The Apostle Paul, responsible for writing half the New Testament, in his former life was a merciless persecutor of Christian people. He was there giving the lynch mob a “thumbs up” when they stoned the first Christian martyr to death on the streets of Jerusalem. In Paul’s former life, he had the religious rulers give him a letter, sealed and signed, to murder, pillage and flog any publicly confessing Christian. Before his conversion to the Christian faith, Paul, was actually on his way to a murderous rampage.

Paul is admitting his past to the entire people groups of Galatia. The reason he does this is to stop people from defining themselves, their futures by things in their past. We all understand that we have former lives. Yet God, fully knowing our past, embraces us and our pasts to give us miraculous futures. The problem is that we get too plagued and bogged down by our pasts and so we never recover from it, we never let go of it. We never embrace the God who overcomes it.

Today, if you are allowing your past define where your future is headed, think about the Apostle Paul– you weren’t a murderer like he was; you didn’t conspire against a whole people group for their faith; hell, you didn’t love your religion so much that you violated the laws of your religion to uphold your religion. Even being the monster Paul was in his former life, Jesus saves. With that being said, you have been redeemed, you are being sanctified by the blood of Jesus, our Christ.

Your life doesn’t have to be the way it was, you have a new opportunity to be you without all the burdens. Take God’s offer up and be made anew. You used to live in your former way, let your present glorify the One who provides a new life.