A Silly Piece Of Paper
Paul says he is to forget the things that were behind. I remember in a number of cases in my own life, when the church I would be attending would bring in an evangelist or whatever other name they called them, and he would say we had to close our eyes and concentrate on things in our past that may have hurt us or may have been some struggle we may have experienced. After we “reached the place” where this had happened we were to imagine the Lord there with us in this time of trouble or turmoil. This, we were told would bring “inner healing” and those things would no longer bother us and we could continue on to victory.
But wait a minute. Does this verse not say we are to forget those things that are behind? If we are to forget them, then why should we be re-visiting them and bringing them up in our hearts and minds again and again. I say again and again because I remember several instances where after having “visited” one particular area of my life in the past, the problem was still very much there. So the next step was, here I go off again to re-visit this same problem because obviously the first or maybe even second visit to this problem didn’t work.
I remember another instance in the church I attended that we were told to write our sins on a piece of paper, fold it over good. They had made a wooden cross at the front of the church and at the foot of this cross there was a hammer and some nails. We were asked to go to that cross with our piece of paper and nail it to that cross. It was supposed to be an act of faith that would help us to get rid of whatever sin we were struggling with at the time. If you had been there at that particular church service, I think you would have been surprised at how many of us were gullible enough to follow through on what the pastor told us would be our step to victory. Sad to say, I remember going to the front and doing this very thing they said to do.
As I look back at those days it almost brings tears to my eyes when I think of how obviously little these leaders in that church knew about the cross. They were making us do something that was fully accomplished over 2000 years ago. My victory did not nor does it come from me writing my sins on a piece of paper and nailing it to a cross at church. My sins were nailed to the tree as was everybody else’s.
I didn’t really intend to write this down when I sat down to do this post but I meant to write about what Paul meant when he said he was leaving those things behind. I will write about that tomorrow. One thing I want to mention today is that I fully realize the people that led us in this form of ritual in order for us to have victory, were doing this because they believed it was one avenue to victory. I am not criticizing them here for what they did. They did what they had been taught and they believed it. I in turn, believed they knew what they were saying and I had no reason at the time to doubt what they were saying was true.
However, over the past several years, I have seen more and more what the Lord did at the cross on our behalf. I don’t have to go to an altar with a piece of paper in order to have victory over any sin. My victory was at the cross of Calvary when Jesus exercised His faith to gain my redemption. My victory is a Man and not anything I do or don’t do. It has already been done, and perfectly done and finished at that. I am no longer interested in walking down any aisle with a piece of paper to nail anything to a makeshift cross. I simply know that when He was nailed to the tree He had all my sins upon Himself and He died for and as me. It is finished.
