The Past as a Tool

It's been well over a month since I last posted. There is reasoning behind this, and I hope to get back on track now.

The reason I haven't posted in a while is because some people got upset over some things that I have posted, and I had to wrestle with the idea of "Is it okay to talk about my past to total strangers?"

Yes.

Acts 5.29: But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than man."
Galatians 1.10: For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
1 Thessalonians 2.4: but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
1 Corinthians 15.10: By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been without effect

There's a lot more verse I could use to make my point, but these will suffice.

The reason I point out these verses is because there are a lot of times where what I preach will probably be offensive to people. The things I talk about people will tell me I should keep to myself. I speak about my past a lot, and I have a rough one. Not that my family was poor, or that I lived in a car for months on end. but there have just been situations, some I was unwillingly put in, and many that I created myself, that many believe I should not talk about. Ever. But why is that? To guard the reputation of a church or minister? Or make sure people don't know that a "man of God" has been to the other side and wasn't always a perfect lil church boy?

I'm in the camp that we all have choices to make, and I've made plenty of choices in my life, most of them bad. But God can take any bad thing and turn it around for his purpose (Rom. 8.28). And because he uses all things for his purpose it is by his grace that I am who I am, that I am redeemed, that I have been liberated from the bondage of slavery to sin, and that I am now alive in Christ, having been brought back from death that is sin.

So if I speak on my past, it is because God has pulled me out of that pit of filth and it has become a part of my witness. And I am called to witness. The difference (for me) between witness and evangelism is that evangelism is presenting the gospel, while witness is presenting the effects of the gospel in my life. And we all are called to witness.

So if I offend you with something I say, good. The gospel is offensive. Christ is offensive. The truth is offensive.

My past no longer effects me. There are still things that I wrestle with, as do we all, but the old me is dead. No longer do I live in my past nor am I tied to it, but it is a part of me and has made me into who I am today. And all of that is by the grace of God, for his glory.

Find what God can use in you and your past for his glory. And don't be scared to be transparent.