From Dr. Evans’ new liberating series “Free At Last,” we learn how to enjoy a life of “Freedom from Yesterday.” All of us have a past that consists of both positive and negative experiences. Unfortunately, when our lives are constantly chained to the glories, failures, or struggles of the past, we become prisoners of yesterday. Living in the past will cancel tomorrow while ruining today. This painful truth is seen vividly in the lives of the people of Israel as the Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert, missing the glorious future God had prepared for them. Let us examine their illegitimate slavery to their past as we learn how to enjoy freedom from ours. Here are three principles we must realize.
Freedom from yesterday involves God working out life’s challenges. The Israelite’s deliverance from Egypt required a developmental period in the wilderness in order to arrive at the divine destiny of the promise land. Their experience parallels a beautiful Christian truth. At salvation, we were delivered from the realm of darkness, the authority of Satan, and the power of sin in order that we might have a destiny in fulfilling God’s purpose and promise for our lives. Every Christian has a divine destiny and purpose to fulfill in God. In order to move from deliverance and to arrive at our destiny, we must go through a developmental period. This developmental period is called the wilderness. This dry and barren wilderness serves as a developmental process that God provides whereby He allows us to go through trials, tests, and temptations in order to reveal that He is God. During these times, we have to depend on God because our own resources are not enough. Of course, problems and challenges exist in the wilderness, and it is easy to digress back to yesterday when life was comfortable, although, perhaps, not pleasant. (verses 2-4). When the Israelites shrunk in the midst of their challenges, they saw themselves as “grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:33). As Christians, God has delivered us from the past, allowing us to see how He works out our problems as He prepares the way for us to trust Him more in the future.
Freedom from yesterday requires a different mind-set. God had delivered the people of Israel with a mighty hand and they were free; although they had a new location, their thinking had not changed. We must realize that we can be free and still be a slave to yesterday because of our thinking. One particular problem that plagued the Israelites was their mind-set. It had become their “Achilles heel,” and it can be ours as well. If we are going to reach our destiny in God, we must renew our minds. The Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land--their destiny--yet their minds were still in Egypt. God was raining down manna from heaven yet they were nostalgic about their diet in Egypt (Numbers 11:5). It is difficult to move forward in the things of God if our minds are occupied with the past. Whenever yesterday looks better than today, we are enslaved because of our mind-set.
Freedom from yesterday requires faith. Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that brought a good report from the Promised Land. Notice their confidence in God, “If the Lord delights in us; He will bring us into this land and give it to us; do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people; the Lord is with us,” verses 6-9. The Israelites did not even mention God, and it seems that Joshua and Caleb always did. They remembered the ten plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna, and the water from the rocks. It was not surprising that they were ready to enter their destiny because of their past experiences with God. The Israelites complained (verse 2) and it upset God (verse 22). The people’s lack of faith even affected their children’s future (verse 33). Joshua and Caleb had heard God’s voice and combined it with faith. Faith is not talking about what God will do but acting on what God has already promised. We must combine action with God’s corresponding word. Faith is required to free us from the past!
Do not live in the past! The people of Israel prayed to die in the wilderness (verse 2) and God answered their prayer (verse 32). All of us have a date with destiny in fulfilling God’s purpose and promise for our lives. When we think about yesterday, it should be seen in a glance, just as we glance in the rear view mirror of a car. We need to spend most of our time looking through the front windshield because that is the direction in which we are moving as we trust God. We need to stop complaining, having an attitude that rejects God’s word; instead, we need to spend time with the Joshua’s and Caleb’s, people that trust God. Remember, God has freed us from yesterday, and He is with us through life’s challenges. We must renew our minds and act on God’s word.
