Many Christians need to be saved from their bad
theology and beliefs about themselves and how God views them. God is not
waiting around to zap you with a shock collar whenever you mess up. It is the
accuser that spews shame, guilt and condemnation all over you. That is not God!
God thinks about us very differently than we do. That is why He corrects out
thinking. He is not in the process of behavioral modification or sin
management. Our behavior will change drastically once we realize how
ridiculously and lavishly He loves us. Once we are addicted to Him, all other
addictions will wash away. Stop holding onto things believing God does not have
the power to heal you from brokenness and sin. [OUCH!] “God, I know Jesus died
and rose and all, but you cannot fix my problems or deal with my mess. It’s
just too much.” Really!? Why do we live like that? “Oh, those other Christians
hurt my feelings so much it’s just wounded me to the core and I don’t think I can
be around other people without having my walls up to protect me from them.”
When we exist like that, we give the demons a stranglehold in us and show the
world a powerless faith.
When you choose to surrender to Jesus and turn over
your life to Him, a bunch of stuff happens: you die to self, you turn from your
sin, you surrender control of your moral choices, you submit your will to God,
you seek Him for guidance, you pursue a relationship with Him; God kills your
old sin nature and buries it, God places you into Christ giving you a new life,
God lovingly rears you as His spiritually newborn child, the Holy Spirit
indwells you permanently as the guarantee that you now belong to God, God gives
you spiritual gifts so He can pour out His grace to others through you and much
more.
You are not a sinner saved by grace but a holy person
of God saved by grace for good works He prepared in advance of your existence.
The sinner was crucified with Christ and buried in baptism. You were raised to
life out of baptism with the resurrection of Jesus and placed into His life.
You no longer live for you but for the glory of God. That is God’s will for
you!
You are no longer trapped by your past. You no longer
need to be a victim of any circumstances or past pain and wounds. You are set
free. Will you choose to move forward and believe it? Jesus has set the
captives free. That is past tense. It’s time to let go of being so tense [pun.
Ha.]. Move into the future. God has a better future for you than you can dream
or imagine.
“Jesus didn’t come to redecorate your jail cell. He
came to break you out.” [David Wagner, 2016 Prophetic Conference, Bethel
Church, March 2016] When talking about Jesus calming the storm David says,
“Jesus is not reacting and responding. He is ruling and reigning.”
In place of abandonment, you have been adopted. You
are not fatherless but a child of God and His family forever.
You are no longer broken. You have been born again
[anew] spiritually.
Your foundation was crumbled but you were crucified so
you could realize you are cherished. God proved His love for you once and for
all at the cross. Stop wondering or doubting!
You are not damned, doomed or defeated. You have been
delivered.
You are no longer God’s enemy. This all should be
exciting and make you enthusiastic [“en theos” = in God].
God is not frustrated, angry or despairing over
humanity. He already took care of sin. We need to surrender to Him and be
transformed by His love. We need to understand how He sees us and understand
our position in Christ due to the resurrection. We need to stop acting like we
are nailed to the cross vainly attempting to pay for our own sin. It is time to
start living on this side of the empty tomb.
We are not in a survival culture. We are in a revival
culture. [David Wagner]
Don’t tolerate something Jesus came to terminate.
[David Wagner]
·
“Depressed Christians are like the Dead Sea.
Nothing flows out of an inward focused person.
So everything in the sea is dead: fear, anxiety, discouraged, depressed.
Even praying about our rottenness is self-centered as it is focused on who we
aren’t instead of Who He is! It’s just
as bad as braggadocio arrogance. What is
true humility?” [Bill Johnson, The Resting Place – sermon]
We are not powerless victims. And God does not answer
our prayers when we pray like we are. In fact, that is not prayer; it is just
whining and complaining which Graham Cooke calls the “worship language of hell.”
And, when we pray from a position of offense, wounds, frustration, envy or
self-seeking, every evil work is present; which means when a person prays from
those they are inviting in the demons who they think they are binding. God
wasn’t so tired, frustrated and fed up with people that He sent His Son. He so
loved us! [This paragraph is a summary from teachings by Dan Mohler.]
We cannot serve, minister or pray from a place of
wounds expecting God to do anything good with that mess. If we have died with
Christ, then we no longer have rights that must be met for us to feel good
about ourselves and need no longer be offended or wounded. Our old selfish
flesh has died with Christ and we are now living through Him because we have
been placed into His life at our death. We need the old guy to stay dead!
We are not empowering people when we sympathize with
their brokenness. We need to tell them who they are in Jesus and that they do
not need to be broken or crushed. Let’s pray because of the promise, not the
problem. Jesus didn’t come so we could get a blessing but so we could be
transformed by being born again. [Dan Mohler]
We were not made for ourselves. We were made for God.
We were made to be transformed into the people of God who shine the light of
God into the darkness. We were never intended to be self-seeking and find
ourselves or pursue happiness. It is only by dying to these that we come to
life in Him. When we die to ourselves, no one has the power to offend us. We
can live from His love and pour out life on the broken world. Imagine how
freeing it is to not be overcome by the negativity of other people’s emotions.
“We are not what we did. We are what He did.” [Dan Mohler inspired much of this
paragraph] “We are not Lot’s wife, so let’s stop looking back. We are the bride
of Jesus, so let’s look to Him.”
2 Corinthians 5: You ARE a new creature in Christ. The
old passed away [DIED]. Be the new you, the true you designed by Jesus before
the foundations of the galaxies. He has reconciled us so we can be ambassadors
of this good news and reconcile a lost world to Jesus. Jesus became sin so we
could become the righteousness of God.
Stop being a caterpillar moping around slowly in
depression and dissatisfaction with your circumstances and feelings. Do not be
ruled by either of those fickle things. Like a butterfly, you are something new
and glorious to display the majesty of God. You were not created to get your emo
needs met. You were created to love. You were loved first. Now go walk in that
truth and be love to others.
Let’s start living out of who we ARE!
“Father, thank You for Your unstoppable love for me!”
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