The “QUICKSAND OF REGRETS.”

Regrets is the Quicksand for the Christian. To live there is to invite despair. It seeks to occupy your mind, enveloping and condemning and offering no hope but hopelessness.

Was it a sin issue that brought you to the place here to the “ Quicksand of regrets?”Was it something you did or should have done? And you have regrets and it is as though you are stuck in “the quicksand of regrets.” When they leave you focusing on yourself, and your failures, and drive you to despair, These “thoughts” of regrets do not LEAD and LEAVE you with the excellency of Christ and such truths as “If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, SO THAT we can, with reverence, serve You.”-( Psalm 130:3-4). ” or “If we confess our sins HE IS FAITHFUL and Just TO FORGIVE us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.”-( 1 John 1:9), are detrimental to your mental health, and since the ultimate goal for our mind is to “Love the LORD your God with all your…Mind,” and the thinking, mulling over, stuck in the “quicksand,of regrets,” distracts from training your mind to think on the truth about the LORD, His Will, ways, as revealed in the Word of truth, and as they become the focus and embraced they are dishonoring to the LORD, for they take you away FROM the LORD and not TO the LORD in your thinking! Beware, guard your mind against anything that seeks to drive you from Him in your thinking! It is a Subtle but satanic attack on your mind!

YOUR SINFUL PAST MEETS THE SAVING SUFFICIENT SAVIOR!

We all have a sinful past. Yes, things we regret that we would change now if we could. But to look at our past and to live now as though there was not nor is no Divine solution for our past is to misjudge and be misguided. To look at our past with any other lens than through the lens of Scripture to view without the Work of God on our behalf is to dishonor Him! It is to live as though the LORD Jesus did not come to this earth and accomplish His saving work on your behalf! It is to live as though He did not nor does not live!

For before we were born the LORD, the LAMB OF GOD was slain before the foundation of the world for our sin! It was determined in the Godhead that He who knew no sin should become sin that we may become the righteousness of God! And then at a point in time that offering for our sin on the cross was made. And three days later God raised Him from the dead for our justification and full and complete acceptance by God, adopted into the family of God has dealt completely once and for all with our sin that had separated us from God! Yes, I have a past, a sinful past, you too! But like you I have a glorious powerful personal Savior for my past. So when you and I do look back, it is not to be stuck in the quicksand of regrets but on the sin-rescuing, new life imparting Savior! And how wonderful He has been to us!

“ALL” MEANS “ALL!”

John wrote that He has forgiven and cleansed us from “ALL unrighteousness.”-( Read 1 John 1:9)

“ALL” means “ All” without exception and you are NOT the one exception as you have wrongly embraced and as a result suffer, having believed the LIE that there is no hope for you. Jesus Christ is your HOPE. He is your guarantee before the Father, that “there is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION for those who are In Christ.”-(Read Rom 8:1). His Word is truth – (John 17:17), and Paul said, approximately thirty years after his conversion to the Philippians,” FORGETTING what lies behind.” It is a command. The word “Forgetting” does not mean you never remember it but it does mean “TO CEASE TO BE INFLUENCED BY IT…”. In other words, STOP GIVING IT POWER OVER YOU.

… If you are going to obey the second command to “PRESS ON…” “stretching forward”

by faith you must choose to obey the first command, otherwise, you will be stuck in “the Quicksand of regret”

And past regrets will dominate your life, rather than being dominated to know Him, love Him, Grow in spiritual maturity to be like Him, conformed to His image, and lovingly serve Him and others FOR Him, NOW!

When Jesus as the Perfect Man was tempted He referred to His authority— The Word of God… and three times He said,” IT IS WRITTEN”-( please Read Matt 4:1-10). So often we do not take those thoughts of regrets captive by immediately taking them to the Word to examine them in light of Scripture, to see how God would have us deal with them! Instead, we grant the evil one permission to seek to devour us and divert us from devotion to the LORD Jesus and His revealed will for us according to the Scriptures. We become preoccupied with past sins and regrets until we find that is all we can think about, and we no longer pursue the kingdom of God as our priority for we cannot think of such but only our past regrets. And the older we get the more regrets we seem to accumulate. And the evil one either through “thoughts” or using others will remind us to seek to “put us and keep us in our place!” Lies are strong and over time if not recognized, exposed, rejected, and replaced with the Word of God are like bars in a prison, seeking to keep us confined and failing to live out our freedom in Christ which He purchased for us. As a result, we tend to live in bondage to fears, and despair which often accompany past regrets!

These past regrets do not come to build us up in our faith, point us to and leave us with the LORD, but to seek to demoralize us, and to distract us from living in the “now,” of pursuing Him and His Kingdom NOW! We are constantly dragging the past into the present and blinded not by the glory of Christ but by the shame of past sins and regrets as though God made no provision!

We need by faith to embrace His way, and by the power of the indwelling Spirit copy Him when He was tempted by the evil one in Matthew 4 and respond with “It is Written” and apply the relevant and appropriate Scripture to the situation when tempted to the despair of regrets!

We need to constantly speak the Truth to ourselves. Too often we listen to “a” thought that overtime squeezed into our thinking and can become either an overflow of thoughts that seem to bombard the mind or just a single thought that seeks to burrow into our thinking such as the thoughts of regrets and we get bogged down in “The Quicksand of Regrets.”

HIS WORD;

His Word is living and active. -( Read Hebrews 4:12)

“Living” because God lives. “Active,” it is powerful enough to bring about the specific end He desires it to accomplish! It is effective!

WE CANNOT GO BACK BUT WE MUST GO ON;

We can LEARN from the past but we must not LINGER there. But in turn, press on to Know Him and be changed by Him. For there is no future in the past!

We cannot go back to change things, if we could we would, but we can go on! We must go on. For it is God’s revealed will we do go on, for His sake and the benefit of others!

You cannot go forward in faith if you are choosing to live in the past being mired down by constantly thinking about past sins, and failures, living as though the LORD Jesus sacrifice was not enough for you, that somehow by agreeing to allow your mind to be beaten up, dragged down into despair and render you inoperative as regards the Kingdom of God is no more than you deserve. In reality not only is that a lie from Hell, but it is also to denounce the sufficiency of the work of Jesus and His Promises on your behalf. It is somehow to believe that you are the exception outside of the blood of Christ and the Word of God! Subtle but satanic thoughts and goals!

GOODNESS AND UNFAILING LOVE FOR YOUR PAST;

And besides, in regards to all of our pasts with David we too can say, because of the Provision of our Good Shepherd who became the Lamb of God for us, “ONLY GOODNESS AND UNFAILING LOVE SHALL PURSUE ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE…”- ( Psalm 23:5-6). God has taken care of our past sins so that we may not be taken up with them but taken up with Him. And if we do look back we see Him! His goodness and unfailing love toward us!

CONSIDER;

1.- God has supplied us HIS SPIRIT to teach us, enlighten and empower us, giving us the desire and power to do what pleases Him !-(Read Phil 2:13)

2.- God has supplied HIS WORD to enlighten, ENCOURAGE and make us wise.

3.- We must choose to cooperate with the LORD and exercise FAITH and live by “It is written,” and not by “ but I feel..” as the right response when tempted to live in “ The Quicksand of Regrets!

  • God has supplied all that we need to live Godly and continue to persevere.-( Read 2 Peter 1:3-4).
  • “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,-“-( Phil 3:13)

When the thoughts of past sins, and failures come to mind, at that moment you have the choice to allow yourself to be ruled by past regrets or the Word of God… and choose to obey Him!

* We need to take our requests to Jesus and leave them with Him, asking Him to strengthen our minds to forget what lies behind, no longer influenced or controlled so that we can press on in pursuit of Christ and Christlikeness!

STOP AND START;

Stop dwelling on past sins, and failures, and Start pursuing to know Him better and growing in your faith, and going forth with the Gospel. Yes, these thoughts come to mind, “cease to be influenced by it,” by recognizing the evil source, and instead immediately Replace these thoughts with the TRUTH of what the LORD Jesus has done for you, who He says you are “ In Christ,”, what He has done with your sins, His promises for you to go forward by faith in Him, seeking His Kingdom as the priority of your life today -( Read Matt 6:33).

Set your HEART and MIND on things above where Christ is seated -( Read Col 3:1-3).

HOW?

Change the focus of your THINKING! Let the Word of God be the Foundation of your life, “IT IS WRITTEN…” look to His Word to find out what “… is written,”, and meditate often on what “… is written,” and apply what “ … is written!”

God has not called you to live in “The Quicksand of Regrets” but to live out this newness of Life He has purchased for you:)

God bless

Aidan