Yesterday
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Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and welcome again to Meditation Moments.
Here’s our wonderful scripture for today. You find it in 1 John, the first chapter: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” (1 John 1:3–8) I want to read that again, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And here’s our wonderful verse for today, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
I found a little clipping in my scrapbook that fits the thought for today. It’s by Robert Burdette and it says:
There are two golden days in the week about which I never worry. Two carefree days kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is yesterday.
Yesterday, with its cares and frets, with its pains and aches, its faults, mistakes and blunders, but it has passed forever beyond my recall. I cannot undo a single act; I cannot unsay a word that I said.
All that yesterday holds of wrong or right, regret or sorrow, is in the hands of God, God of mighty love. But thank God, He brings honey out of the rock and He can bring sweet waters out of the bitterest desert, and turn weeping into laughter. He can give beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, the joy of morning for the woe of the night.
Save for the beautiful memories that linger, sweet and tender, yesterday is gone, I have nothing to do with yesterday. It was mine; but now it’s in God’s hands.
Adapted from “Two Golden Days,” by Robert J. Burdette (1844–1914)
Oh how true, life’s yesterdays have passed forever beyond our reach! God has them in His keeping; leave them there. Susan Coolidge writes this:
Yesterday now is a part of forever,
Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight;
With glad days, and sad days, and bad days which never
Shall visit us more with their bloom or their blight,
Their fullness of sunshine or sorrowful night.From “Begin Again” by Susan Coolidge
How many claim they’re trusting God, but they worry about their yesterdays—the blots and stains on the pages of the past! Never rejoicing in the forgiveness of God and that He has said He has blotted them out, blotted out all their sins. If you’re a child of God and you came to Him repentant, confessing and asking forgiveness, how can you go picking around in the dead past which has been covered with the sacrifice of Calvary?
He said of your past, “I will remember them,” your sins, “against you, no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12) How wonderful! God doesn’t even remember them, then why should you? Much less worry about them so!
How the Devil loves to accuse the saints of God about their yesterdays, because he wants to keep them under condemnation. God’s Word says, God’s Word assures us, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Though your sins be as scarlet,” God’s Word says, “they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Oh, wonderful, wonderful! They’re all washed away down at the cross where the Savior died.
What a tragedy then to carry around a load of yesterdays and grieve over our yesterdays, when God has wiped it all out and forgotten our sins.
One person writes beautifully, but I cannot agree, for he says:
If I could only find
The road to yesterday
I’d ease my heart of many a load
That burdens me today.
Recall the words so harsh, unkind,
Kiss clean the stabs I made when blind,
Plant love for hate—
If I could find the road to yesterday.
I’d write the page with cleaner pen
And wipe out yesterdays,
Repent and turn and walk again
The road to yesterday.
With wiser heart I would retrace
The stains of sin, and wrong efface.
My tortured soul seeks means of grace
To relive yesterday.Author unknown
But who wants to relive yesterday when God’s given us a wonderful today, and promised so much for every day of the days to come? We couldn’t wipe out the stain of yesterday, as this beautiful poem says. This isn’t God’s way; we can’t relive yesterday. The cross of Christ with outstretched arms stands blocking the path to yesterday.
Because of the penalty paid for your sins on Calvary, the apostle says, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14). You’re to forget the things that are behind. Forget them, press on toward the mark for the prize!
You can’t make the sands in the hourglass run backwards, and if you had all the wealth of the world, you couldn’t buy an outworn month or a secondhand hour. There’s no redemptive price for these, but there is redemption for you. He has redeemed you and you are clean from all that past!
What a pity that you should carry the burden of yesterdays, when He’s paid such a price to lift that burden and set you free. But you must, of course, be truly repentant, confessing your sin to Him and yielding your life fully into His hands. He paid it all; with one stroke of His nail-pierced hand He will wipe out your yesterdays and that awful burden of guilt.
It was his love for me
That nailed him to the tree
To die in agony for all my sin.
For my own guilt and blame
The great Redeemer came,
Willing to bear the shame
Of all my sin.Oh, what a Savior is mine,
In him God’s mercies combine;
His love can never, never decline,
And he is mine.To Calvary’s hill one day
The Lord was led away;
None else the price could pay
For all my sin.Was ever love so strong,
Was ever crime so wrong,
When Jesus suffered long
For all my sin?
He saw my greatest need,
Then he became my Friend indeed,
Through him, oh, I have been freed,
I have been freed of all my sin.Adapted from “It Was His Love for Me,” by Norman J. Clayton (1903–1992)
I received a letter this week from one who’s going mad over remorse for her yesterdays. In this thing she makes the cross of Christ of none effect.
Some years ago my youngest son, David, was riding on a bus en route to a meeting where he was to sing. He was studying the words of a song. Sitting beside him was a Jewish man, who evidently had been reading the words also. The song was called “My Yesterdays.” Suddenly this man leaned closer and in a voice choked with emotion he said, “That’s it, it’s my yesterdays that drove me mad—my yesterdays!”
He had gone into the Patton Asylum unmanned by these thoughts, benumbed with remorse, weakened with self-contempt. My son talked to him there on the bus of Christ’s forgiveness and His cleansing power, and when they came to their destination the man asked eagerly, “Can I please go to this meeting with you? I have on just working clothes, I know they wouldn’t mind. I want so much to be rid of my yesterdays.”
That night he wept openly as David sang in that meeting “My Yesterdays,” and that man gave his heart to God, confessing Jesus Christ as his Savior. And Christ lifted that load, forgave the yesterdays, cleansed his heart, giving him a freedom he had never known. I often saw him after that. He came to visit me, and he could never get through talking about how God rid him of the torment of his evil yesterdays. He would repeat some of the words, “My yesterdays so filled with guilt and shame, my yesterdays are gone, oh praise His name.”
My friend, I wonder is there anything more wonderful than the miracle of forgiveness, more glorious than that feeling of being clean through the blood of Calvary! It’s for you. All these promises are for you. Take them personally, claim them.
A great price was paid for every promise, and your loving heavenly Father wants you to have all that He’s promised. Remember, He can’t fail His Word. He’s God. He’s true, unchanging truth. He has all power to back up every promise in His Word, which He assures you in this verse, “He hath never failed in one of all His good promises” (1 Kings 8:56). Hold on, believe God. He has said it, will He not also do it? (Numbers 23:19)
Remember God’s on the throne and prayer changes things.