1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

We are not defined by the sins of our past.  We don’t need to see our sin when we look at ourselves.  God sees Christ when He looks at us, so we should look to Him instead of looking at our sins.  There is a big difference between something that was once dirty and is now clean and something that was once dirty and remains dirty.  Our sins are forgiven and forgotten by God.  Our old man has been crucified and was not resurrected in the same form as he went to that cross.  So why do we so often have such a hard time seeing ourselves as God sees us instead of looking at who we used to be?

Yes, we were sinners, but we are washed.  Jesus dipped us in His own shed blood and scrubbed our souls clean.  He removed every stain and didn’t miss a spot.  We were sinners, but we are sanctified.  We are purified by Christ’s sinless perfection.  We are conformed into His image.  We are made to be more and more like Him.  We were sinners, but we are justified.  Jesus paid our debt in full.  He took our punishment.  He died for us.  It’s over and done.  There is nothing else that anyone can ever do to atone for any of our sins.

We don’t have to live the way we once did or be the way we once were.  In fact, we should be a lot different after we are saved than we were before we were saved.  Before, we were living an empty, hopeless life.  But now we have Jesus.  We have His Spirit inside us.  And to have a piece of  God that close to us should transform us in ways we could have never imagined.  Just to have that purity, that holiness so near should constantly be moving us away from those sinful selves and closer to the righteousness found in Christ.

We may have cast off our old sins and our old ways but somehow kept our old view of ourselves.  Christ’s redemption is complete, and we no longer have to hold ourselves accountable for sins that have been forgiven.  We don’t have to see ourselves as that horrible list of sins, because that is not how God sees us.  Let’s forgive ourselves for our past mistakes and ask God to help us see the truth about us and our position in Christ.  Let’s keep our eyes on Him and move forward, growing in Him and more like Him day by day.