Thank you; I think this is very helpful and simple.
And the church of Jesus is considered to be His virgin. All of us, then, now are the virgin of Jesus. So then, our identity and who we are now has nothing to do with our sinful past.
So, about your past . . . the same goes for all of us in Jesus > your past does not define who you are now. You are no longer, by the way, an independent individual who should be effected and defined by your past, but now you are with us in Jesus if you have indeed trusted in Christ > Ephesians 1:12.
And you have started a new upbringing in a new family, also.
We are family; our past individual sin lives do not define or have any say in who we are now.
So, beware of letting yourself get isolated from your Jesus family people. We have all been sinners; we have all done shameful things. Unforgiveness is one of the most shameful, by the way.
But, in this evil world, there are people who will evaluate you by your past and not forgive you, but they will answer to God if they do not repent of not forgiving you.
They are the ones in trouble, and
Satan can be allowed to bring your past back,
in order to test you. But we answer to God.
Just because something is forgiven, this does not mean Satan can not bring it back to our memory. But instead of being worried about your own past, now it is time for you to forgive people, including those ones who do not forgive you. Each time a thing comes back to me about someone, I can do a better job of forgiving the person and more maturely praying God's blessing to that person. So, I would say this is what you need to be doing > you forgive the ones who do not love you, and then keep loving and blessing and forgiving them more and better as you mature and Satan keeps bringing them back to your mind . . . if he does > once he finds out people he has you remember will come to a prayer meeting for them, he might stop reminding you of them, and then you will need for God to remind you .
So, our Heavenly Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are better than we are; They forgive us, but we are not so good at forgiving, are we? Instead of struggling about that stuff, be snuggling in love's prayer for all those poor ruined people unforgiving, who need to find out how to love > have compassion for them, and do not allow their evil to get to you >
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)
This
"good" includes how God desires for us to forgive the way He has forgiven us.
"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)
We can see, then, how Satan's trick can be to have you worrying about if you are forgiven, in order to keep you from moving on to forgiving
"even as God in Christ forgave you." Satan wants to keep you from living in unity and harmony
"tenderhearted" of forgiving each other in the loving and kind way and so-generous way that our Father has loved us.
Because as we grow in how God's love has us forgiving the way He does, in His love we have power so Satan and his horrible things can't get the better of us. For example > 1 John 4:18.
So, not only are we so guaranteed that we are forgiven for anything and everything, but this is our example which we are required to follow.
"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)
So, the Gospel is our example to follow, not only a report to believe! Jesus on the cross so suffered and died with hope for any evil person, at all > love
"hopes all things" (in 1 Corinthians 13:7). And this is our example, that we follow Jesus by having hope and forgiveness ready for any person, at all.
So, please to not let any dirty and cruel and bullying feelings and thoughts hold you back from this loving which we have in Jesus! And have mercy on any human who would try to hold you to your past. Show that person how to love, so God can use your good example to spread to that person how we have love and family in Jesus.
If you grow in how Jesus has us loving, you will be less ok with the things you did. You will see more and more of how wrong you were, and you can become more and more grateful that God has turned you
"from the power of Satan to God" (Acts 26:18).
In my case, now that I have become able to feel for other people, now I can better see how wrong I was to bully people. At first as a Christian, I might only know it was not nice to do. But now I can see how it kept me from being able to love, and I could have had the best of love friendship by sharing with my victims and standing up for them. But > though I am not with them, now, so I could do that with them, now - - - there are all the people I do have now, so I can enjoy loving and tenderly sharing with any and all people, now, the way I should have with those people.
I would say > likewise > now you know what was wrong; do the good you can, now . . . how now you can become a loving and caring person.
And make sure you are with family caring and sharing Jesus people who help you with this. And spend time with mature couples and seniors who have decades of time getting God's correction and maturing in how to share with and submit to God, and how to relate and how to do well in marriage.
And my opinion is, certainly do not isolate even on dates with a guy you do not even know enough to be sure it is good to trust him. You can make sure with God, without isolating with someone and even falling for a guy when you haven't even found out how he really is.
And my personal opinion is I have seen how people marry ones they do not even trust!!
My personal opinion is it is wise to marry someone who you know you can trust to forgive you . . . because he knows Jesus requires us to forgive, among other things.
Jesus is very clear >
"'And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.'" (Mark 11:25-26)
So, I see how being able to forgive lovingly and generously >
"anything" > this is a basic of being capable of love. So, I would not even start a relationship with a guy who does not know how to love. Why would you even think of marrying a person who would not forgive you?
But yes there are even anti-love and anti-forgiveness men who can charm women into marrying them, and even thinking they are mature Christian men and very desirable for marriage. And church culture people can hold them in very high esteem. But in case you are attracted to a man like this who does not have the ability to love you, this can mean you need to evaluate how you are evaluating men. What is it about you which can make you able to be attracted to someone who does not know how to lovingly forgive?
There appear to be many women who have married men who seemed to be so great. But they have turned out to be Jesus-talking abusers and adulterers. Those women did not know how to evaluate. They were attracted by what has nothing to do with real love, I have to consider. And men . . . me, too . . . have fooled ourselves. And this is not the fault of whoever fooled us. We can with Jesus make sure about whom we trust.
So, in case you are involved with church people who can not forgive you . . . unforgiving people can be very cruel and anti-love and they can make a big show of themselves so you can be fooled into supposing they represent God's church and Jesus.
They don't!!!!
The Jesus people are gentle and humble and they can be very in-your-face with their readiness to forgive. If you just listen to us for a little, you might not need to ask us about this
Or, maybe, just say something vague like, "Oh, I did something in my past that I am ashamed of," and see what kind of an earful a forgiving person will give you