Baggage

I decided to clean out my file cabinet. Years of receipts, credit card, and bank statements. Carbon copies of checks from 4 years ago, and old prescription receipts. It was time to get rid of it all. It filled an entire garbage bag (kitchen size not lawn size). It was heavy. Extremely heavy. And because the bag contains my personal information I couldn't just throw it out. It was also too much for my home shredder. I have to take it to a place that will shred it for me-for a fee.
I have to carry this bag around until I have a chance to take it to the shredder. It didn't take long for me to realize this was a metaphor for baggage we carry in our lives.
Each of us for one reason or another chooses to carry around this huge bag labeled "the past". We take it with us from relationship to relationship, job to job, state to state. We don't need to carry it but we do. We can't just toss it aside-it has personally identifiable information.
What we can do is take it to Jesus. He wants our baggage. He takes all that stuff from our past and shreds it till nothing recognizable is left.
Before that can happen we have to go through our lives and pull out all the junk from the past (He's good at pointing those out too). Then we have to agree to give it to the Master-Jesus and not try to take it back and carry it around.
Another step we often do us accumulate new baggage. We're free from our old lives but due to unresolved guilt or hurt from our past we start accumulating more baggage. Stop it!
Christ made you new. Don't collect more baggage to carry around. Live in the freedom Jesus has granted you. No more baggage.