Ephesians 5:8 brings us into a right perspective when we are around unbelievers. They live in, walk in, and interact through darkness. It says, “For you once were darkness…” I think of Titus 3:3. 

It says, ‘For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.” Why then are we surprised when unbelievers lash out? It is their modus operandi. They know no different.

Ephesians 2:2 says, “In which you once walked…” When we remember what we once were, we are empowered to interact through grace ~ following the Holy Spirit ~ resisting our flesh’s prompting. We are not the Lord’s light bearers when we react in our flesh.

1 John 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” 1 John 2:6 is our template. It says, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” What we are eternally is our standing which will never change.

Absolute obedience trains us to walk as Jesus walked. In John 5:19 Jesus said, “…the Son can do nothing of Himself…” John 15:5 is our key for empowerment to obey. It says, “…for without Me you can do nothing.”

I started memorizing Ephesians 5:8-21. Verse 8 says, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” The last part is a command. What is the result? Verse 9 starts out, “(for the fruit of the Spirit…)

We bear the fruit of the Spirit when our lives are lived under the control of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:16 is another command. It says, “…Walk in the Spirit…” Commands in Scripture are there for us to obey. When we live under the control of the Holy Spirit, we will bear fruit for the Father’s glory. John 15:8.

We disobey when our flesh pulls us off track. The man of God in 1 Kings 13 was pulled off track by a deceiver. James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.”

In my daily reading I came to the story of the man of God who disobeyed the Lord. It always reminds me what happens when we compromise God’s word to us. In 1 Kings 13:2 he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord.

You can read it for yourself. The king invited him to come to his house. He would reward him. The man of God clearly stated that he could not because of what the Lord had told him. Yet, he was tricked (verse 18) and he disobeyed. It cost him his life.  

Think back to Moses when he disobeyed the Lord. It cost him from going into the promised land. 

Let’s look at Jesus as our example. Hebrews 5:8 says, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Hebrews 12:11 says, “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Our instruction for obedience is clearly stated in His word.

I want to give you an example from one of my mentees. She dwells in her past. Read her words and feel her emotional impacts. “…having my daily crying spells and breakdowns again. For whatever reason my brain goes back to the thoughts of all the unreciprocated friendships and attempted relationships I’ve ever felt which is in turn making me feel unlovable and unlikable…”

Note how she blames it on her brain. “… I really don’t understand why my brain stores all this hurt up inside…This contributes to my self esteem issues.”

Dwelling in our hurts from the past keeps us from living vibrantly in our present. As Paul did, we exchange dwelling in the past by staying focused in our present.

Jesus is our Excellent Example. Hebrews 8:12 says, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” That was quoted from Jeremiah 31:34. The writer of Hebrews was introducing the new covenant, because Jesus made the first one obsolete. We need to let go of our past obsolete hurts and embrace our present now.

Forgetting is choosing to not remember. Forgetfulness is an inability to remember. Huge difference. I’m still camped at Philippians 3:13 with Paul’s one thing that he does. “…forgetting those things which are behind…”

We fall into a gamut of emotions when we choose to remember something hurtful from our pasts. All memories are stored in the limbic part of our brains. I copied this from the Cleveland Clinic.

“the limbic system works together with other brain regions by processing your memory, thoughts and motivations, then tell your body how to respond.” When we choose to recall and dialogue with something traumatic from our past, our body responds as though it is happening right now. That is why Corrie froze when she was face to face with her ex-guard. She brought up the abuse in her mind and her body reacted.

It is good to be attentive to our reactions. They often reveal what is hidden that impedes our physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. When I overreact to something, I pause and ask myself, “Marilyn, what do you believe about yourself right now?”

I want to recount a story that Corrie Ten Boom told. She had spoken at a church in Munich in 1947. At the close of the service a man walked up. She knew him well. He was one of the most vicious guards at Ravensbruck. 

He said, “How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!” He held out his hand to her. She remembered him. There she was face to face with one of her captors, and her blood seemed to freeze. 

He told her that he was a guard at Ravensbruck, “…but since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me…will you forgive me?”

Corrie stood there. She wrestled. She asked the Lord to help her. She took his hand and forgave him with the same forgiveness she had received from the Lord.

We cannot reach forward while still holding onto the hurts from our past. Matthew 18:35 says that God Himself will send tormentors if we do not forgive from our heart.

What do you need to let go of? 1 Peter 2:1 says, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking.” I have a verse taped to my refrigerator. Titus 3:2 says, “To speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.”

People lash out at others through hurtful words or actions, because they have not laid aside their past. Jesus was sinless. He had no past. For several mornings I have woken up with these words from the hymn “It Is Well.” My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—My sin, not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to His Cross, and I bear it no more; Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

In 1 Peter 2:23 we find our example of how to emulate the Lord when our flesh wants to rise up in self-defense. It says, “Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” Revile means to abuse insultingly. 

Philippians 3:13 says, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” Note: forgetting and reaching were one fluid movement.

To forget the troubling things from our past is a choice. In truth, what has taken place cannot be changed. Five minutes ago became our past. Our past is finished, over, and done with. Our past only exists in our minds. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is my favorite forgetter verse. It prods me to let the thought go that is not going to serve me well.

Paul wrote, “…old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Let’s go back to the beginning of verse 16. It says, “Therefore from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh.” You may have been hurt by someone’s negative or destructive fleshly actions. Paul experienced it over and over. Yet, he chose to let the past go as he reached forward. Constantly bringing up past hurts is futile thinking which causes emotional fatigue.

In John 14:21 it says that the test of our love for the Lord is through our obedience to His word. The results are, “…and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” The Greek for manifest means to appear, come to view, reveal, exhibit, make visible, present oneself to the sight of another. 

The Lord is so magnificent and majestic. His infinite attributes are incomprehensible to man. A. W. Tozer’s book “Knowledge Of The Holy” says that He has countless attributes. I love what Tozer wrote about Him being Self-Existent. Think of this: no boundaries, nor limitations, no past, and nothing in our lives is impossible for Him.

Therefore He uses our trials to make Himself known to us in ways we have not experienced Him before. He never does things the same way. He does not meet our present needs the same way He previously met them in another trial.

We are trained through His manifestation to us. He draws us into deep intimate communion. He helps us to embrace His way which is perfect. Psalm 18:30.

I was looking at a vine with a friend. The vine’s tendrils were reaching out to connect with something sturdy and solid. It reminded me of our trials. They are like a trellis that cause our faith’s tendrils to reach further.

Hardships, adversity, troubles, and sorrows are trials that train our faith to reach out to the Lord in ways we didn’t before. No trial is in vain. The Lord redeems everything in our lives. Nothing goes to waste in His Kingdom. 

Job 42:2 was Job’s conclusion after his long trial. It says, “I know you can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” Our trials are divinely orchestrated and designed. The intensity of our fiery trial melts our faith. That causes any hidden dross  to come to the surface so it can be skimmed off. 1 Peter 1:7 says, “That the genuineness of your faith…may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

The Lord uses our unique-to-us trials to reveal Himself to us in ways we did not experience Him before.