I watched the movie, "The stoning of Soraya M" this past week. It was very brutal, and I don't at all recommend for the faint. But that, and lots of personal circumstances, have had me thinking about the concept of "Go and Sin no more"
I love the concept of forgiveness and of grace. I am grateful for it. Heaven's knows I'd have been lost a long time ago otherwise. I am a faller, definitely NOT a flyer.
But then humans get involved, and shew it makes it so complicated and difficult.
You sin, and most often it hurts, it affects, other people.
You ask for forgiveness and receive God's forgiveness. They are still damaged.
You move forward, trying to improve. They have to work out the situation on their own.
On top of that you have the bystanders. They all have their opinions and most have forgotten how many times they have needed the same grace and forgiveness. "Well we just want you to be happy", "oh my do you know what such and such did?", "I'd never put up with that".
So you end up in this very painful and scary place.
Forgiven and not. Free and bound. Moving forward, and the past in your face every day.
At this point, you have two decisions. You can continue to feel guilty. You can continue to let people remind you of what an awful person you are. You can listen to all the voices who tell you it's hopeless, and get stuck and a cycle of self destruction...or, you can move forward.
You can go and sin no more...You can ask for forgiveness from those you have hurt, you can do your best to mend the situation, you can allow your potential, not your past, to define you.
I can tell you from personal experience, if you let your past haunt and define you, it will keep repeating itself. I've spent four years on that that cycle, and I can tell you it only gets more ugly. You have to let it go, even if no one else does.
You can't change the things you have done, but you can change where you are going. Your only hope is in moving forward, in truly going and sinning no more...get started!
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