Let Bygones Be Bygones

The maniac of Gadara did not spend the rest of his life in the grave yard once he was forgiven. He buried his former life there in the tombs and then threw away the shovel. He never even returned to put flowers on that miserable gravesite. Evidently he knew digging up unpleasant memories of the past gives out a worse stench than when originally buried.

We should not constantly be remembering things which God said He has forgotten. I’m told most patients in mental institutions are there because of something they cannot forget in their past. Thus, it drives them crazy. Certainly there are consequences for past sins, but never is there condemnation once we have asked for forgiveness.

We cannot move on with our lives still wrapped in our grave clothes. Leave them in the grave. Both Lazarus and Jesus did! R.S.

A New Look For Old Truths

“[W]hich bringeth forth out of his treasure both new and old.” The new without the old is novelty; the old without the new is moldy. To separate the two can be disastrous. They are to always go together. To contend for the new at the exclusion of the old is to lose your way. To insist on the old at the expense of the new is to lose your vigor.

Some are fearful of the new while others are frightful of the old. Jesus was good at putting new looks on old faces. To be uncomfortable with the one does not justify the condemning of the other. The old message stays the same, but new methods are always needed. Keep the old experiences, but don’t do away with new experiments. It’s refreshing to see old truths in new garb. We are not to be content with old discoveries. There is new gold yet to be mined.

Everything old was new at one time and considered progressive and contemporary. R.S.

Happy Thanksgiving!