How much time do we really spend in the present? It obviously varies from person to person. I know I have had to learn to do it—it doesn’t come naturally for many people. The temptation is to either dwell in the past, regretting things you have done, or else to look to the future in fear. Also there is the possibility of looking at the past through sentimental eyes, wondering why your present doesn’t match up. None of these are healthy—we miss what God has planned for us right now.

I believe a major tool of the enemy is to find a way to cause someone to mess up majorly at least one time, early in life. Or else he causes catastrophic events, that haunt people, or that people blame themselves for. This gives him ammunition, sometimes for a life-time. He is the accuser. For some reason many of us find ourselves listening to him, even after we have found forgiveness in Christ.

We disbelieve the work of the cross, and choose to make judgement based on our past performance. Conversely sometimes we think time heals everything. We don’t bother bringing certain things under the blood, but rather just block them from our memories. The latter is probably the more dangerous of the two. With the first option, we eventually come to a realization we can’t stand on our own righteousness. When we realize this, we find healing by submitting it to the Healer.

If we bury our problems, we are just as much saying we don’t need the power of Christ in our lives. The most dangerous part of it though, is sometimes we literally do forget about the things that are causing current problems. This gives the enemy a legal hold on something that was never brought under the power of the blood, but we can’t figure out where our problems originate from. But the Holy Spirit can bring it to remembrance if we ask Him.

So there is the same remedy for both—letting go of a lie and believing the truth. The lie in the first example is that we are guilty. The truth is that we are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb—if we have allowed Him to do so. The lie in the second instance is that the Keeper of the eternal courts suffers from amnesia, and so after He forgets about our sin, or the access we gave to the enemy—the subsequent problems will quietly slip away. The truth is, everything is permanently etched in legal documents until legal methods are taken to get rid of them. The legal method is to bring it to the throne of grace in repentance, and find cleansing.

Then we need to believe we are clean, and walk in it.