Your past is not your future.

That has been said so many times before, it may be a cliche no matter how it’s phrased. The thing is, everyone needs to hear it again because we keep forgetting—as fearful creatures, we look over our shoulders by instinct, expecting something to sneak up on us. Or worse, to be following in silence.

satan is our most relentless predator, and his weapon of choice is our past. It’s really clever of him to set our biggest regrets on us, so we’re looking back at them into the darkness. In this way, he keeps us from looking straight ahead at the light emanating from the cross of Jesus Christ. Clever, clever.

This is a hallucination, a trick of the shadows. It gets us every time–but the truth is that our past is gone because of what Jesus did, and so are our sins. What you see chasing you is not really there. It can’t hurt you, because it was destroyed when He said “It is finished.” It’s been washed away in the blood of the Lamb.

So what now?

I can’t lie, the past is always going to feel vivid to us, and we will always be scared of falling into the same sin. We’ll always be scared that the shadows are hot on our trails, hungry and restless to feast on our blood.

We can choose not to look over our shoulders at a danger that isn’t there: The only real danger in life is failing to see the light. Our eyes ought to be fixed instead on the Cross, from which we can draw the courage to keep going.

In the shadow of the Tree we will see beautiful things.

The past is gone, and our future is bright. Let us look to the future with joy, living in a present so different from the past that soon even its shadow won’t matter to you! Only Jesus will matter, because we are children of light, and His Cross is the brightest thing of all.