Posts Tagged: the ghost of Christmas past

“MY GHOSTS ARE LYING—AND SO ARE YOURS!”

On December 4, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Leave your ghosts in the past ‘cause you know that you can’t go back
But you can turn around.”  (Casting Crowns, “One Step Away”)

My pastor preached an altogether excellent sermon yesterday.  He used Charles Dickens’ Christmas ghosts as a jumping off place.  Yesterday, he looked at our past ghosts.

Speaking as a person who has been haunted by his past for a very long time, I cannot tell you how helpful this sermon was to me.  Sometimes, you have to hear certain truths several thousand times before you finally really hear them.

We can all remember horrible things we’ve said or done.  If we can’t, it isn’t because we are particularly good; it’s because we are particularly forgetful.  At one level, these memories—these ghosts—are real.

However, as my pastor pointed out, these ghosts lie a lot.  They tell us that we’ll never escape from them, that there is no hope, that God doesn’t love us, that God can’t use us for his service and glory, that we shouldn’t forgive ourselves.  On and on go the lies.

But the quiet, simple truth is this: God is more powerful—infinitely more powerful—than the ghosts of our past.  He has forgiven us.  He has forgiven me.

So, here is what I plan to do.  I plan to start believing God.  (In fact, I have already started!  Why wait?!?)

I also plan to tell my ghosts to get lost.  Every time they whisper their lies, I plan to tell them, OUT LOUD WHENEVER POSSIBLE, to shut up.  Of course, if someone is around and I don’t see them, they may think that I’m crazy.  That’s okay.  Telling my lying ghosts to shut up is one of the sanest things I can do.

 

 

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