Every Saint Has a Past and Every Sinner Has a Future

In his novel, Father Elijah, author Michael O’Brien puts these words into the mouth of his lead character, “First of all, you let yourself be drawn away from prayer. You weren’t distracted by evil things, for the enemy knows that you have been converted from them. He drew you away by legitimate pleasures… The second temptation is of a more sinister nature. The temptation to hate yourself because you have not lived up to your ideal. That is pride, and it is very dangerous. It opens the door to much worse things.”

That quote could take this column in two directions.  The first would be a monologue about how easily it is to be drawn away from prayer by “legitimate pleasures.”  With the Christmas season approaching there would be plenty of examples I could use from my life or yours.

But it is the second part of the quote that I would like to focus on because as we move into the new year we are probably already looking back on this year and despairing of how little we accomplished or bemoaning the changes we were going to make, but didn’t. This is one of those tensions that must be held by Christians if we are going to be faithful to what God has revealed about what it means to walk with Him.

We are not what we should be.  We are not what we were.  Peter writes, “So you must live as God’s obedient children.  Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.  You didn’t know any better then.  But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy” (1 Peter 1:14-15 NLT).  John writes, “If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves.  A claim like that is errant nonsense” (1 John 1:8 The Message).  Paul writes, “Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1 NLT)  Eliphaz, in the book of Job asks, “Do you think it’s possible for any mere mortal to be sinless in God’s sight, for anyone born of a human mother to get it all together?” (Job 15:14 The Message)

While we cannot give ourselves permission to sin, neither can we hate ourselves because we have failed to live up to either to God or our own ideals.  As Chuck Leckie used to say (and maybe still does) we need to have our noses pointed in the right direction.  Paul said something similar in his letter to the Christians at Philippi: “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection.  But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing:  Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Philippians 3:12-14 NLT)

Oscar Wilde was right when he wrote, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”  In Christ, that past is forgiven and that future is secure.  So, like the apostle Paul, let us forget the past and look forward to what lies ahead, pressing on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.