God Is Greater Than Your Past!Намуна

Have you made mistakes and struggled to feel like you’re ever beyond their shadow?

As a pastor, my heart breaks for the people I counsel who want to experience all God has for them in the future. They yearn for good things but struggle to get there because of pain from the past. Pain can distort our perspective, keeping us from seeing how God is at work today and being aware of His power to transform tomorrow.

Romans chapter 8 is one of the most hopeful passages in the Bible. Paul tells his readers they are free from condemnation and the power of sin and death. He reminds them that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in them. In addition to summarizing the Gospel and reminding us of our identity in Christ, Paul’s words towards the end of the passage show how believers can exchange our past for a bright future.

In this reading plan, I will show you three promises God makes us that we can claim when we feel stuck between a painful past and our hopes for the future.

But before we get to that list, I must ensure we avoid two significant errors in reading the Bible. We read it as if it were written to us individually and out of context.

First, we tend to forget that the Book of Romans wasn’t addressed to a person but a group of people. Western, individualistic values have shaped the dominant worldview in my home country (America). So, we read the Bible as if you mean “me.” However, the word “you” in Romans 8 is “you plural”—written to a group of believers. While you may be reading this plan alone, what we will discover is more significant than any of us.

Second, we often read the Bible out of context. Starting in the mid-1200s and continuing until the 1500s, many individuals broke the Bible up via chapters and verses. The format we use today, including chapters and verses, was published several hundred years ago. People created these marks to help us navigate the Bible, but that has had unintended consequences. We often cherry-pick verses that are out of their context. For example, we read the hopeful promise of Jeremiah 29:11 (“For I know the plans I have for you - plans to give you a hope and a future”). We forget to read the beginning of the chapter where the prophet told the people they would be in captivity for seventy years, meaning some would die far from home. The people needed a reminder that God had a hopeful plan for them.

So, what you read in this plan isn’t just for you; it will include longer passages to help you see the big picture.

With that introduction in place, I hope you’ll join me for day two when we consider the first promise, which encourages us to move beyond our painful past.