The Burden Of Past Mistakes By Poju Oyemade

The burden of past mistakes, the mercy that wipes away sins and the restoration of the years the canker worm has stolen. Many people still walk around today burdened by past mistakes. Sometimes it's not just the sense of guilt but the consequence of wrong choices that stare them in the face and seems to shut down opportunities. They look back and say to themselves "if only I didn't do this or if I had done that instead of this my life's trajectory will be completely different."
Words have power. Few realize the power of words of truth. They don't understand that the woman with the issue of blood who spent all her living on doctors for twelve years but rather grew worse was completely healed and restored simply by hearing the right words. It was what she heard, words were spoken that changed the trajectory of her life.
Mark 5:25-27 - "And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment."
What changed the course of her life were the words she heard about the Truth. Acts 11: 13-15 buttresses this point. Listen to what the angel said to the Roman centurion about his salvation, the means through which the change will come: words.
Acts 11:13-15 - "....Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning."
The consequence of wrong choices made in the past which still rears its head in events and conversations can be completely removed from our lives if we understand the word mercy and its usage in the New Testament.
The word mercy was used by the apostles in the New Testament in a way that never existed in the Greek language prior to their usage of it. They actually coined a new meaning to the word mercy using a separate word from what was known as mercy back then. This tells us a lot about what it really meant when God shows mercy for sins committed. The power released through mercy could not be described by anything in our human relationships. It isn't even in the way in which mercy was shown for any wrong doing between a mother and her child. His forgiveness was and is deeper than that.
He doesn't just do a white washing or wash over, which means to cover while it still exists beneath. It means to obliterate, the wiping out of a memory of an experience from one's remembrance or one's mind. It was to wipe something out of existence.
In Col. 2.14 Paul speaks of Jesus ‘blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us’. Now the word that Paul uses for handwriting literally it means a ‘holograph’. It goes on to mean a ‘signature’ and then a ‘written agreement’. But it came to mean technically ‘a written agreement acknowledging a debt’, a ‘certificate of debt’, a ‘bond’. A man writes to his friend, ‘If you can, please get on to Mr Dee and exact from him his bond.’ A ‘holograph’ was a document which acknowledged a debt that had to be paid. It was that Jesus wiped out for us.
In NT times documents were written on papyrus. The ink was made of soot, mixed with gum and diluted with water. The characteristic of this ink is that it has no acid in it and therefore does not bite into the paper. It will last a very long time and will retain its colour, but if, soon after it is written, a wet sponge was passed over the surface of the papyrus, the writing could be sponged off as completely as writing might be sponged from a slate. Now the interesting thing is this—a commoner word for cancelling a certificate of debt was a Greek word which was the same shape as a capital X, right across the document.
So, after a trial in Egypt, the governor gives orders that a bond should be cancelled, that is, ‘crossed out’. But Paul does not say that Jesus Christ ‘crossed out’ the record of our debt; he says that he ‘wiped it out’. If you ‘cross a thing out’, beneath the cross the record still remains visible for anyone to read, but if you ‘wipe it out’ the record is gone, obliterated for ever. It is as if God, for Jesus’ sake, not only ‘crossed out’ our debt, but ‘wiped it out’.
As the woman with the issue of blood on hearing about Jesus's work said, "if I will just touch the hem of His garment I shall be made whole", you also can go to the throne of grace today with a bold confession of what Jesus did through His blood for you and obtain mercy which He has provided and the consequence of that particular mistake tormenting you still will be obliterated from the earth and the years (opportunities) the canker worm stole will be restored to you.

Source: Pastor Poju Oyemade, Covenant Christian Center