Perhaps you have been neglected, abused, rejected, abandoned, and mistreated in the past? You may find it difficult to get along with the abuser — let alone like them. You may be hurt, bitter, embarrassed, and/or hateful. You have tried in vain to free yourself from it. The memory awakens the feelings again and again.

Then you hear about Calvary and learn that God made deliverance possible. Jesus is offering to come into your life and take all the pain, bitterness, shame, hate, everything that has been done to you, completely upon yourself. In doing so, he gently takes you into his life so that you receive all the blessings that his life deserves, including a clean slate and eternal life. You wonder, "That's unfair! How can that be?” Jesus replies: “Truly I say to you, whatever you did to one of these least of these my brothers, you did to me.” (Matthew 25,40:XNUMX)

You realize: What I do to others, I do to Jesus. So what others do to me must also have been done to Jesus. So Jesus takes your place. He prayed for those who abused him: »Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.« (Luke 23,34:XNUMX) So this also applies to those who abused him by abusing you.

If I see myself as a victim, I'm carrying a lot of baggage around with me. Even when I try to forgive, the bitter root in my heart is still alive. Thinking about the perpetrator hurts. I can only try to suppress it. If I succeed, then everything is fine, right? Not correct! Freedom doesn't come through a vacuum. But that is exactly what the act of repression does.

If you were a prison chaplain, you would deal with sex offenders, drug addicts, thieves, and murderers. But you wouldn't mind, you might even like her. Why? Because you or your loved ones were not their victims.

I know a family whose eleven-year-old daughter disappeared one day. There were no cell phones back then. Back then, parents still checked the clock to see if everything was okay with their children. If they weren't home at a certain time, alarm bells would start ringing.

When the girl did not come home at the expected time, the mother called the school and found out that her daughter had left home after school. A call to friends confirmed this information. Then she called her father. He came home from work early to look for his daughter.

He drove down the street while the mother waited at home. But his daughter was nowhere to be found. When it got dark, they called the police and filed a missing person's report.

First one official was sent, later several. Towards morning the search party grew even larger. But in the evening the hope continued to dwindle and with each evening a little more. Two weeks later, a search party found her remains in the woods. The nightmare they never wanted became the nightmare from which there was no waking up. Hope died last. Her daughter would never come home.

As the investigation continued, the horrifying truth emerged: a neighbor with a criminal record had kidnapped the daughter and treated her like bad people treat young girls. Eventually, he did the unspeakable and buried her remains in the forest, where search dogs eventually found them. You can imagine what was going on in the hearts of the mother and father.

Now, if they were working in prison chaplaincy and they met him there one day, how easy would it have been for them to love and help him? It would have been impossible for her. Why? Because what he did affected her and her loved ones.

It's the same with you and me. Others have wronged us and our loved ones. We cannot love them because we are victims. On the cross, Jesus has now created a way out of our past. He comes into our lives and takes all the consequences upon himself. He gently places us in his life and gives us everything he deserves. We no longer need to be personally hurt because Jesus takes our place as soon as we enter the Calvary experience. And suddenly we can love the perpetrators, work for them and serve them, because they did all this to Jesus and he still loves them and offers them forgiveness.

Because I entered this cross experience, I love Jesus, and because I love Jesus, I also love these people. If he's willing to sacrifice himself for her, so am I. Because I have experienced his love and forgiveness firsthand. So I can pass it on.

God wants to heal our hurts. That is why he gives us a new heart if we trust in his power of grace. God wants to free us from the baggage of the past, and that includes this divine "exchange" that the cross makes possible.

But the cross tells us something else: Before the cross, as a victim, I reacted negatively to what was done to me. But not after the cross. My story, guilt and responsibility, Jesus, our heavenly High Priest, transferred to the heavenly sanctuary through the blood he shed on the cross, from where it all eventually falls back on Satan, who will bear the consequences of whatever he has unleashed. Calvary wins my heart. All negative feelings and thoughts that I have as a victim dissolve. No more hate, no more bitterness, no more anger, no more shame. Jesus takes everything away from me. I am free!

If we still feel like victims, then we still live before the cross. Whoever comes to the cross does not remain a victim. Jesus on the cross frees us from our past. Are we willing to let God unload us and receive His grace? Or do we want to carry on the ballast and the guilt?

Before the cross I am also a perpetrator. But after the cross, the guilt and responsibility are taken from me. Jesus carries them and all the negative feelings and thoughts of my actions can no longer bind me. I am free!

If we still suffer from guilt, then we live before the cross. Whoever comes to the cross does not remain a perpetrator. Jesus on the cross frees us from our past.

Read on here: Part 9

Part 1

Slightly abridged, courtesy of: Dr. medical Mark Sandoval: The Law of Life, Uchee Pines Institute, Alabama: pages 107-111