It was for freedom that Christ set us free (Galatians 5:1).

How does God intend for you to resolve hurtful, controlling past
experiences? In two ways which we shall consider today and tomorrow.

First, you have the privilege of evaluating your past experience in
the light of who you are now, as opposed to who you were then. The
intensity of the primary emotion was established by how you perceived
the event at the time it happened. Remember: Your emotions are a product
of how you perceived the event, not the event itself. As a Christian,
you are not primarily a product of your past; you are primarily the
product of the work of Christ on the cross. The flesh, which represents
how you processed those events according to the world and without
Christ, remains. But you are able to render it inoperative.

When a present event activates that primary emotion, many people
believe what they feel instead of believing what is true. For example,
people who have been verbally abused by their parents have a hard time
believing they are unconditionally loved by Father God. Their primary
emotions argue that they are unlovable to a parent figure. They believe
what they feel and their walk is off course. Believing the truth and
walking by faith is what sets us free.

Now that you are in Christ, you can look at those events from the
perspective of who you are today. Christ is in your life right now
desiring to set you free from your past. That is the gospel, the good
news that Christ has come to set the captives free. Perceiving those
events from the perspective of your new identity in Christ is what
starts the process of healing those damaged emotions.

God’s good news about our identity is revealed in 2 Corinthians
5:17: "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the
old things passed away; behold, new things have come." This is what
you must believe first in order to be set free from your past.

This daily devotional is published and distributed by
http://www.GOSHEN.net/ . It is written by Neil Anderson at
http://www.freedominchrist.com/ .