Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that ruined countless Bible studies by bringing up the Nephilim.
I’m super grateful for all the positive responses to last week’s article, Why Revivals Peter Out. There was one point I left out of the piece. It now appears on the blog and on my substack page. It’s the part in bold below.
“The Spirit of God has always used human beings to accomplish His work. Whether Peter, John, Philip, Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, or Titus. The same has been true historically with every revival and move of God.
Philip, the evangelist, went to Samaria and ignited a revival there. However, Peter and John, two apostolic workers, were sent to the city afterward to bring their unique impartation (Acts 8). Philip led off, but Peter and John drove in the runs.
Every real revival requires a catalyst. Someone to spark it. But sparks don’t sustain fires—fuel does.”
If you’re new to UNFILTERED, you can read the article here.
Incidentally, I wrote that article while a revival in Florida was underway. However, it fizzled after 11 days as predicted. That didn’t have to happen.
Now for today’s feature.
A Bad Chapter Isn’t the Whole Story
I meet so many Christians who are blocked because of their past. Your anxious-worrisome self didn’t get the memo, but the mistakes you’ve made back then don’t define you.
Unless you let them.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: someone out there has decided that your worst moment is your entire story.
Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was something you said when you were in your youth and not as smart as you are today. Maybe it was a genuine screw-up that you’ve spent years agonizing over with bitter regret. Doesn’t matter. They’ve labeled you, filed you away, case closed.
But here’s what makes it truly maddening. These same people—often professing Christians wrapped in religious righteousness—will bend themselves into philosophical pretzels to explain away their own garbage.
Their own mistakes? Those were “learning experiences.”
Their own sins and failures? “Nobody’s perfect.”
But your mistakes, foibles, and trespasses? Well, they are permanent markers of who you fundamentally are.
In fact, your own fallen mind will also try to define you by the things you regret. (With a little help from “the accuser of the brethren,” who regularly puts negative thoughts into our heads.)
The Bible condemns judgmental self-righteousness. Jesus spent half His time calling out people who pointed fingers while ignoring the planks in their own eyes.
The whole “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” thing wasn’t a cute suggestion. It was a direct assault on this kind of hypocrisy.
The reality is that we’re all works in progress. Including you and the religious people who hate you.
We’ve all done things we wish we could take back. The difference is that some of us have the self-awareness to recognize our own fallibility, while others employ pretend moral superiority as a shield for their own insecurity. And almost always, their closets are full of more skeletons than most mortals.
If you trust and follow Jesus, the deal is pretty clear. Your shame doesn’t get the final word. Our Lord is the great remover of our disgrace. He nuked the agony of regret and torched the sting of guilt. That’s what He did when He died a brutal, savage death … willingly … for you.
The self-righteous have whited out all the talk about forgiveness from their Bibles. Including the most alarming of all:
“But if you don’t forgive others, then your Father in heaven will not forgive the wrongs you do.”
~ Matthew 6:15
When we withhold forgiveness from a repentant person, we open ourselves up to being outwitted by satan’s schemes (2 Corinthians 2:7-11).
Take heart. If you follow Jesus, your past mistakes (including sins) don’t define you.
Peter wasn’t defined by his three denials of Jesus during the Lord’s darkest moment.
David wasn’t defined by his murder and adultery. (Strikingly, the New Testament never mentions it. Rather, it speaks about him in glowing terms.)
Moses wasn’t defined by the murder he committed.
Paul wasn’t defined by his savage attacks against the body of Christ.
Abraham wasn’t defined by his lies about Sarah being his wife.
Jacob wasn’t defined by deceiving his father, cheating his brother, and manipulating Laban.
Jonah wasn’t defined by his running from God’s call and being embittered about God’s mercy to Nineveh.
Elijah wasn’t defined by his suicidal impulse and fleeing in fear after defeating Baal’s prophets.
John Mark wasn’t defined by his abandonment of Paul and Barnabas on their first apostolic journey.
Thomas wasn’t defined by doubting Jesus’ resurrection, despite the eye-witness testimony of the other disciples.
The Samaritan woman wasn’t defined by having five husbands and living with a man who wasn’t her spouse.
All were flawed, yet God worked through each one powerfully.
Why? Because they all knew and experienced the mercy, grace, and forgiveness of a God who is more loving than many who profess to know Him.
And they all repented—meaning, they stopped the transgressing behavior.
God’s evaluation matters more than human opinion.
Therefore, that mistake you made so long ago? It may be part of your personal story, but it’s not the title of your book.
Grace means you get a clean slate (Hebrews 8:12). It means you get to keep growing, keep changing, keep becoming something better than your worst moment. You also get the honor and privilege of having God use you.
The people who can’t see that? That’s their limitation, not yours. Their need to define you by your failures says infinitely more about them than it does about you.
“Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.”
~ Oswald Chambers
If you want Scripture on this, there are many, such as this one:
“Behold, I have created the blacksmith
Who blows the coals in the fire,
Who brings forth an instrument for his work;
And I have created the spoiler to destroy.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord. (Isaiah 54:16-17)
Why Revivals Peter Out