Don't Lose Heart By Jason MeyerSýnishorn

What to Do When the Past Paralyzes You

Whenever we begin to lose heart, we should take the gospel and press it into the deep places of our lives where discouragement loves to hide. Why is discouragement so prevalent in our lives?

Over the rest of this week, we’ll do a real-life assessment that examines the three tenses of discouragement. The past tense of discouragement is shame or bitterness about what we have done. The present tense of discouragement is disappointment about what we currently have. The future tense of discouragement is anxiety about what might happen in the future. We will begin to defeat these half-truths because the reasons to take heart are greater than the reasons to lose heart.

Our memories can serve as a kind of time machine. The time machine of memory can be a good thing when we go back and replay the good times because using it in this way can help us to enjoy a pleasant experience in exponential ways. But the time machine of memory becomes twisted when we use it to relive our past failures and punish ourselves over and over for the same mistake. When we put our sins on repeat mode, we wince and groan because it triggers sharp pangs of guilt and shame. Our guilt brings past sins into the present and says, “Look, you made a mistake.” Then shame joins the conversation and adds, “And you are the mistake.”

Here is the problem with the twisted time machine of memory. We travel back in time under the pretense of a half-truth. Yes, we sinned, and sin should not be taken lightly. There is appropriate guilt and shame that come from sin, but as Christians, we know that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). 

Yes, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), but our debts have been paid. Don’t sit in your sin. Take it on a journey all the way back to the cross and see it nailed there. I can remember the liberating moment when I stopped reliving my failures and raking myself over the coals and started looking at the cross instead. At the cross, God covered the sin of ________ (fill in the blank) with the blood of Jesus Christ. 

The half-truth of discouragement says our sin is only nailed to the cross “in part,” but the truth of God’s Word says our sin is paid in full!

Are there sins that you replay often in your mind? Memorize Hebrews 10:10.