My friend looked rather dejected, and so I commented, “You look depressed; is there a problem?”
He replied, “I’m worried about the future.”
“What worries you about the future?” I asked.
“My past.”
That is a legitimate concern. The past has everything to do with the future. We are the product of our past. We bear the consequences of all that we have done in the past. What worries us is not the good things of the past, but the bad. Evil conduct bears evil consequences. What we sow in the present we reap in the future. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:10). And, since we all have sinned (Rom. 3:23), the future looks bleak as we go before the judgment of God. Indeed, it is in view of the fact that the wages of sin id death, that is, spiritual separation from God. (Rom. 6:23)
If this was the final conclusion, we all would be most miserable, living in fear of the time we must stand before God. But, thanks be to God, this is not the final word … because we have a remedy, a means of erasing the guilt of the past. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth to offer Himself as a propitiation for sins. (1 John 2;2) Through His blood we can wash away our sins, as we are buried with Him in baptism. Our old man is crucified with Him and the body of sin is destroyed, so that we can be raised to walk in a newness of life. (Rom. 6:3-6) In baptism, as penitent believers (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, 8:36-37), we receive a remissions of sins, we wash away our sins. (Acts 22:16) Now God promises, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Heb. 8;12)
Yes, Jesus is the way to the future, a way that separates us from the past. As you live righteously in Christ, why worry?