We Are...

This past Sunday at church, we finished a series called "At The Movies" which took popular movies and intertwined them into matters of faith. This final message revolved around the movie "We Are Marshall". In a nutshell, the premise was how a college football team faced disaster head on. When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach (McConaughey) and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive. The plot reaches a pivotal point when the new coach takes a road trip on the morning of game day. The team travels to the cemetery where six of the former players have been laid to rest. In an emotional moment he addresses his players and informs them that "the funerals end today." His reference was to the fact that in order to move forward we have to forget the past.

Sitting next to my beautiful wife I was overwhelmed at the number of people sitting around us that were sniffling and wiping tears as we witnessed this real life example of what happens to so many of us.

We get crippled by the mistakes, the errors, the sins of our past. We walk around with this feeling of guilt, regret, and sometimes hopelessness about certain areas of our life. Areas like a marriage that did not last. Areas like a dream that failed to come true. Areas like a failure in a relationship, at work, at school, or personally. Maybe we become spiritually handicapped by a decision in our past. Here's a big one... what about our immediate past. Like yesterday. How can I experience the freedom that comes from the loving God when just in the past 24 hours I have blown it?

Well, according to God's Word... He removes our sins and separates them from us as far as the east is from the west. He casts them into the sea of forget fullness. Our repentant soul is washed clean.

So where does that leave me today? Well, I am under the impression that when it comes to the wreck of my past... the funerals end today. I will no longer mourn and grieve over what has been covered by the blood of Jesus. I will move on. I can move on. I will move on hand in hand with my Redeemer and Savior.

Let your funerals end today...