Is there any advice people can give about letting go of the past? I had a really terrible year a long time ago, but I still feel really bad about it. I feel unforgivable. I feel like I'm a nice person, but I really screwed up. If it wasn't for this one year I think I would be okay.
Well, here's the thing: God says we have
all screwed up sufficiently to deserve Hell; we are all of us terrible, wicked people.
Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Jeremiah 17:9
9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
Mark 10:18
18 ...No one is good but One, that is, God.
But, the Bible says God's love, and grace, and mercy, is greater than our sin.
Romans 5:20-21
20...But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,
21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ephesians 2:4-9
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
There's no good reason, then, to think your sin is unforgivable. Where your sin abounds, God's grace
super-abounds.
Usually, when a person won't let go of their past sin it is because they think far too much of their sin (and themselves) and far too little of God. Being free of your past sin becomes a matter of what you'll choose to believe, what you will choose to tell yourself about your sin. Is it forgiven and forgotten as Scripture says? Or is the Bible wrong and your sin is actually too big for the Creator of the universe? What will you choose to believe? I'd go with God's word on the matter.
I can never shake this voice. I've tried several medications and I found one that helps but I still hear this voice all day long.
Well, if it won't go away, use the accusation of the voice in your head as a trigger to remind yourself of the truth: God's mercy, grace and forgiveness are greater than your sin. I suspect the more you do this, the less you'll hear from the voice of condemnation that is currently afflicting you.
So all day long I feel like I'm going to hell. I try to do good deeds. I give money to the poor every time I have the chance. I also volunteer at a Christian homeless shelter. The voice in my head just laughs at me. He says I'm "bribing God" whenever I give to the poor.
Maybe you are bribing God. I can tell you that such things don't work with God. He sees your heart always. In any case, what He wants first and foremost from you aren't good deeds - charity, prayer, Bible study, etc - but your
love.
Matthew 22:37-38
37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and great commandment.
You see, love for God is the only motive He will accept for your obedience to Him. Fear, duty, obligation, religious vanity - all of these God absolutely rejects as reasons for obeying Him. He wants you to love Him, first of all.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
The voice in my head is constantly making deals and bets. It says "if you do this you'll get some kind of disease." I don't want to go into the details but he is constantly attacking me with illnesses and other things that I'm afraid of.
The single best way to be free of this sort of fear is to love God. But loving God requires that you first know Him and trust Him. If we don't know and trust a person, it is very difficult to love that person. When you know that God loves you with an amazing, endless love, and you trust - really trust - yourself to Him, your fear will dissolve.
1 John 4:16-19
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
19 We love Him because He first loved us.
