We all have a past. We all had a life former to the one we now have in Christ.

The Apostle Paul taught the church of Ephesus, saying, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” (Ephesians 2:2,3).  

Everyone, before their conversion in Christ, walked in the ways of disobedience, and in ways that were not pleasing to the Father.  

In his teaching, this great apostle also included himself as one who fulfilled the “desires of the flesh and mind” by using the word “we”. He said, “We all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh.”

We all have a past. We all had things that were not characterized as being a godly lifestyle. Still, even if one tried to live perfectly, we all had a place and time in our history where we had to choose to trust and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior because any personal righteousness we may have thought to have had, outside of Him, it was merely “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Anything without the transformation of Jesus Christ in one’s life amounts to the sin of pride and self-sufficiency. 

 We all have a past.  

We all have things we wish we could take back and have a do-over.

While we may not be able to travel in the past to undo a wrong, we can travel forward in the newness of what Christ has done for us.  

Just staying in this one chapter of study, Ephesians 2, we see myriad promises that testify to the better that we now are, and the better that is up ahead as opposed to the past we left behind.

Verse 1 says what we were: “dead in trespasses and sins”, but, by God’s mercy and great love (vs. 4), He took what we were, changed us, and made us alive in Christ Jesus (vs. 5). 

Because of our new position in Christ, He “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (vs. 6). 

We have been “saved through faith” (vs. 8), and not because of anything we could bring to the table.

Where we once walked is not where we walk now. What we once did is not what we do now. Now, we are made for “good works” (vs. 10). We used to be “far off” and are now “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (vs. 13). 

Jesus is now our peace (vs. 14). We are now members of His body (VSS. 15-16).  

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-22). 

Yes, we all have a past, but what we have now in Jesus Christ and what God has in store for our future is so much better.  

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