Have You Set Your Past on Fire?

We all have heard the phrase that people use about not “Burning Your Bridges” with people and opportunities, but I wonder how many of us have considered that some things in our lives should be set on fire so we don’t go back to them? Probably more than you think. We often get stuck by things in our past. The thing is to recognize them early enough.

When we keep our past alive, but under lock and key, it has a tendency to break out of the past and become the dominant force putting us right back where we were when we desperately wanted freedom. I had the opportunity early on in ministry to work with people who were recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. The addiction often started out small but soon grew into a monster that people could not control, but rather it took control of them. In such times we become desperate to break free from the addiction at any price.

Here is the problem with things that once bound us: Unless we have a clean break with our past we fool ourselves to think we are really free when in truth we are in a sense just on vacation from it. Vacations are not permanent and come to an end. So it is with a past we want to change. Unless there we make a clean break from it the hold is still there even when we don’t realize it.

One of the problems with our past bondage is that we often don’t see the bondage the same way as a person who isn’t trapped by it. The drug addict thinks his or her addiction is just kind of bad, and not really bad. The alcoholic knows that drinking too much is bad but a little shouldn’t hurt. They believe they can control it. The reality is they don’t see their past problems clearly. They look for half-measures rather than eradicating the problem completely with no strings attached.

I have  been talking about obvious addictions, but what about the addictions that aren’t so obvious? What about the person who works too much and is addicted to the extent it holds sway over everything else in their life? What about the person who has a sports addiction, putting every thing aside in life for sport, including their family and friends? What about the person who wants to be a Christian, but not 24 hours so they compromise their relationship with God for other things? Addiction is in the eye of the beholder and if we don’t see the trap we never get truly free to live for Christ.

There is an account in the old Testament of a man who was given the ability to serve God in a powerful way, but there was a catch. He had to burn his past so completely that he couldn’t go back to it even if he wanted to. The problem with desiring intimacy with God is that you can’t have it if you are not willing to burn your past, even if your past doesn’t look like an addiction. This is the story of Elisha who the prophet Elijah found plowing his father’s field.      

1 Kings 19:19-21

So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, while he was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. And Elijah passed over to him and threw his mantle on him. He left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” So he returned from following him, and took the pair of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the implements of the oxen, and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah and ministered to him.

Elijah knew that the responsibility of a prophet requires a full-time commitment, leaving everything that was familiar, including family. Elisha knew his opportunity was now or never so he  sacrificed the oxen he was plowing with which put him at odds with his family and his town.

Jesus talked about the same principle of burning our past when he talked about following him. He knew there were people who wanted to be “Jesus Groupies” but for who did not have a heart that was sold out to God. He said if we really wanted to follow him completely we had to, in a sense, burn our past ties to be real followers.

Luke 14:26

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

Somehow we read a teaching like this from Jesus and convince ourselves we are 100% followers, but have never severed the ties that bind us in a life without God. We end up pretending we are 100% with Jesus when we are maybe only 10% convinced he is the way, the truth and the life. We hold onto our life as is and try to incorporate elements of a Jesus life-style but not the real deal. We are, for the most part, pretenders hoping God is convinced of our sincerity.

In case we misunderstood Jesus’ requirements for being a true follower he made similar statements about being fully committed, like in another part of the book of Luke when he talked about plowing. It has the same connotation that Elisha understood when he sacrificed the bulls. God is not asking us to feel good about following, he is telling us that if we really want to follow it will cost us everything. It is a total shift in living, or it’s not following at all.

Luke 9:62

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.

Let me share and excerpt from one of my favorite authors, Erwin McManus. He wrote about Elijah and Elisha in his book “The Last Arrow”.

“Every day you will have to choose between living in the past, staying in the present, or creating a future. The great danger lies in that the easy path is to hold on to what you know, cling to what you have, and make the future an extension of the past. Though there is no way to stop time, you have to choose the future. Although you are grounded in the past, you must not be grounded by the past. And while tomorrow is coming regardless of what you do, the future comes because of what you do.

“More than a decade ago, when I wrote Chasing Daylight, I discovered that one of the most obvious things I wrote became one of the most controversial, but I think it’s worth repeating.”

Erwin wrote about how time seduces us into believing something that’s not true. Time will run out for all of us and yet we believe the lie that we have plenty of it and it will never run out. We somehow believe we will always have time to change things, and we can always put off until tomorrow the important things in life.

Evaluate your past and the things that still hold your attention and allegiance. Burn whatever is not of God. Live like tomorrow is not promised and make the most of the freedom only Christ can bring

Questions:

1) Did you make a clean break with your past that was anchored in anything other than Jesus? If not, ask the Holy Spirit to set you free (John 8:31-32)

2) Is there something the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on that you should offer as a sacrifice for good, like Elisha did? You know it’s a bondage if you are reluctant to surrender it ( 1 Cor 2:10 )

May God help us to live a surrendered life,

Pastor Dale