The Past lost its Power in Christ
We would want to think that the 20th and the 21st centuries brought about the consciousness of women's rights but that would only be because of not taking notes of certain things in the stories of the Old Testament to make us the mind of God about the subject.
When Zelophehad's daughters protested their exclusion from the inheritance of their tribe because their father had no male child, Moses was first taken aback. He had to consult God to know what to do. Of course, God gave them justice by permitting them to have their father's inheritance. The justice of God protected their rights.
Much more than that, we can see God's graciousness in the genealogy of Christ Jesus. Ordinarily, we list genealogy by the patriarch of each generation. It becomes interesting when mothers' names are also listed. Not only were certain women named, but these women aren't those that will fit into the normal religious narratives.
The first that was listed was Tamar. The woman who by trickery lured her father-in-law, Judah, to sleep with her. Perez, one of the twins that were born of the uncommon siring was a forefather of Joseph, the man God chose to be the earthly father of Jesus.
You'll then see names like Rahab, the harlot. What's the name of a harlot looking for in the list of the foreparents of the one who would save the world from their sins?
The Ruth, the Moabitess, a foreigner from a tribe detested because of their ancestry. Moab was a son of Lot. His mother was his big sister who, with her sister got their father drunk to sleep with them to have children.
Another woman who made the list was Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, the man David murdered to commit adultery with. I thought David had more religiously compliant wives.
Well, we are the ones who care about the stories of the past, God's redeeming grace overlooked all that to show us the character of this great God who forgives and forgets when we turn to Him in love and repentance.
What qualifies us before God is our love for Him and our willingness to turn away from our sins to follow Him. He cleanses those who love and follow Him from every stigma of past sins, dealing with them as if they have no past. The humility that comes with repentance is a powerful magnet of the great grace of God. Jesus Christ said, the one who is forgiven the most, the same loves the most.
There's nothing your dirty past can do to you in the face of God's grace. Despite the fact of your past, God's grace is sufficient to bring out of you a glorious vessel for His service. With Him, we can dream of a great future, our past notwithstanding as long as we aren't planning to go back there.
