Jesus ‘cancelled the record of the charges against us…by nailing it to the cross.’ The word ‘cancel’ means to remove, to neutralise, to offset something. Have you ever got most of the way through a project and wished you could start over? Suppose you were painting the lounge, and you stepped back and looked at the colour on the sample chart. On the wall, however, it doesn’t look the same. You wish you could redo it.

Many of us feel that way about life, as one author describes it: ‘I’ve made so many mistakes. I wish I could just wipe them out and start over.’ Failures, problems, bad decisions – we have all suffered from them. But some people can’t let go of the past and, as a result, they let their past limit their present opportunities. They live in a constant state of regret, continually lamenting, “If only I hadn’t done that” or “If only I had made these changes.” They repeatedly second-guess themselves. And they are tormented by painful memories. “I blew it, and I’m going to be paying for it for the rest of my life.”’

You may choose to carry guilt, but you don’t have to! The moment you put your trust in Christ, He ‘cancels the record’ of your past. Actually, you no longer have a past, you only have a future! You can lay down, once and for all, your heavy load of guilt, old hurts, and memories of mistakes. Jesus ‘took it away by nailing it to the cross’. God has promised to ‘blot out your sins…and will never think of them again’ (Isaiah 43:25 NLT). You must too!