There are few things more bitter than having regrets in life. Looking back over the years and seeing missed opportunities causes us emotional pain and can make us wish we could go back in time to change our mistakes. We’ve all done things in the past that we regretted. Making bad decisions and poor choices is part of being human; thankfully, focusing on Jesus and what His blood accomplished enables us to move forward.

Regret and Remorse Trap Us in Our Past

Regret is defined as sorrow or remorse accompanied by a sense of loss. It causes us to condemn ourselves and focus on our past, instead of on what Jesus is doing in our present and what He wants to do in our future. It makes us remorseful over something we did or didn’t do. Maybe we hurt someone years ago, didn’t make amends or reconcile with them, and have been tormented about it ever since.

We may think of a mistake we made twenty years ago and have to deal with the feelings of regret it triggers. It might be the loss of a relationship, or an opportunity that slipped away because of a decision we failed to make. Regret causes self-condemnation and occupies too much real estate in our minds. It isn’t God’s will for us because it robs us of our joy in Jesus Christ.   

This is why Satan is so intent on bringing us back to our past—it gives him chances to accuse us. Thankfully, he has already been defeated. “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony…” (Revelation 12:10, 11). Our testimony is one of the most powerful witnesses we could verbalize. Believers have been made the righteousness of God, regardless of their past, and this is just what we must declare and confess.

Satan Constantly Accuses Us

To accuse someone is to charge them with a fault; the devil loves to remind us of our past and say, “That was your fault.” His reasoning is that if he can trap us in regret, he can cripple us in our pursuit of God. When he shows up, we need to remember that all of those accusations come from him, not from God.

God is well aware of our past, but can also clearly see our future. He loves us dearly and has already chosen to forgive us. He has decided not to count our sins against us. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:8). God isn’t blaming us for where we are or where we should be, and He never will.  

This is an important point because as Christians, we must be careful not to join the enemy’s army of accusers. He knows we’ll be paralyzed if we dwell on our past mistakes, and we won’t be able to move forward into God’s will for our lives. He wants us to wallow in guilt, shame, and self-pity instead of serving others. We have to guard against his attacks.

Jesus’ Blood Overcomes Regrets and Accusations

One of the greatest weapons at our disposal in this spiritual fight is the blood of Jesus. Being covered by it protects us and neutralizes the devil. The saints in Christ overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb, which was shed for our forgiveness. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  This is what we must remind ourselves of when the enemy comes and brings accusations.

Jesus paid for every failure in our lives, both before and after we believed in Him. He dealt with our sins even before we were born. He saw into the future, knew what was going to happen, and made provisions for us in advance. As the Lamb of God, He was the only one able to take away the sins of the whole world, including ours.

The prevailing message from religion is that God’s going to “get” us for something we did. The truth is that He no longer punishes us because Jesus already took all the punishment meant for us. God is no longer a punisher, but a loving Father. Accepting this means we no longer have to live in condemnation. “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, NLT).

We Can’t Live in the Past

God isn’t angry with mankind, because Jesus’ blood sacrifice satisfied the requirement to pay for sin. Just like a small child learning to walk, we will fall from time to time; earthly parents don’t punish their child for this, and neither will our heavenly Father punish us. Satan wants to keep our failures front and center. By contrast, because God has already forgotten them, we can put them behind us where they need to stay.   

We have to leave the past and move forward. We all have a past, but we don’t have to live there. When we stumble, we have to pick ourselves up and keep going forward. The devil wants us to stay down and give up, but that’s exactly what we should avoid. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14).

Paul had to move forward even after his past, and he learned how by the grace of Christ. Just like Paul, we must do the same; not doing so allows the enemy to take what’s behind us and turn it into a life of regret. We can’t afford to stay stuck in our past, and we can’t change what happened previously. The past is gone; refocusing from it to what God has in store up ahead gives us hope and encouragement.