Tuesday, February 26, 2019

In the spirit I saw a person holding a small bag, they appeared to be looking inside. As I watched, they disappeared into what appeared to be a vapor, a fog, smoke. Then another person appeared. Holding a larger bag they too appeared to be looking into the bag then disappeared into the vapor. I thought to myself 'they are looking for something.' Holy Spirit said 'no, that is their bag of trash.' He explained;  each and every person has events in their past that have caused hurts. Many cannot let go of them, carrying them year after year, their bag of hurt feelings, unforgiveness, rejection, misunderstandings, bitterness, anger....the bag they carried was their bag of trash. 

The bag serves no useful purpose and should have been discarded years ago yet millions keep the bag handy, cherishing it, digging around in it often when opportunity presents itself, reminding others of its content. Many struggle with the weight of the bag; often allowing its weight to destroy health, relationships, lives; allowing their past to determine their future, yet they refuse to let it go, clinging tightly, nurturing this heavy bag of trash.

Holy Spirit said their disappearance was a picture of how fragile life really is. We are all like a vapor, here for only a brief time and then we are gone. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor (mist, fog, smoke) that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. John 4:14) We must put our bag of trash in the rubbish bin and move forward with God, leaving our trash behind us.

'What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.'  Romans 6:1-14

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