Imagine sitting in a foreign jail for doing something good. Instead of being patted on the back, it’s being laid bare and repeatedly beaten with a rod. Instead of being praised, you’re being charged with a crime and chained to a wall in your enemy’s most secure prison. Have that sinking feeling in your stomach that you’re experiencing something far beyond your worst nightmare?
Is it, “I can’t do it” or “I won’t do it”? They may sound the same, but they are worlds apart when it comes to victory in Christ. One statement is about playing the victim card and the other is the victor card.
The “I can’t” statement leaves victory in another person’s hands. It says that someone else did something to me or is not doing something for me that keeps from me making a decision to be free from my drug of choice. Remember this truth: freedom in the hands of another is not freedom. Christ came to make you a victor, not keep you a victim. You can always choose to filter life using your biblical tools and experience freedom no matter what someone else does or doesn’t do. Jesus has given you control of your freedom by giving you a choice (Rom. 6:12-14).
The “I won’t” statement leaves victory in your hands. It says you know what to do, can do it, but you’re choosing to not to do it. This honestly lays the decision whether or not to take your drugs of choice squarely where it belongs … at your feet. That’s tremendously freeing! By switching from “I can’t” to “I won’t” you’re at least failing forward. You’re making a hopeless situation look a little brighter by grabbing control of the decision making process. You don’t have to wait on someone else to be free!
What card will you play today – the victim or the victor card?
S“E”t Free Nowww
“Yum, these cherry tomatoes sure are good!” In late spring my wife and I planted a variety of vegetables: tomatoes, yellow, red and green bell peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini. Now in mid summer, we’re eating those vegetables in our salads and sharing the excess with friends and neighbors.
There’s an important truth in this garden story. You eat tomorrow what you plant today and you eat only what’s planted. Paul talks about this process in Galatians 6:7,9, ” A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Life happens; thus, we can’t always control the thoughts entering our brain. We can, however, control what gets planted. You become what you focus on (plant). What you focus on only gets bigger (grows). Are you planting “fantasies” or allowing lies to take root that will bring a harvest of sadness and pain? Or, are you planting truths that will lead to peace, security and significance?
In order to experience the “good stuff” we have to use our biblical filter – the FREEdom process – to keep out the bad and plant the good thoughts/seeds.
Sure it’s hard work. Don’t fool yourself, though. If you don’t plant God’s truth today, you won’t reap victory over your drug of choice tomorrow. Whatever you sow into your brain today will be harvested in your character tomorrow. Whatcha plantin’ today to harvest tomorrow? I’m hungry. I think I’ll go grab a healthy snack.
S“E”t “FREE” Nowww
Many of our problems stem from one of two mistakes. One, we either try to play God. Or two, we try to make God into our image.
We play God when we think we know exactly what we need and demand that He meet our “needs” our way, on our timetable. We make God into our image when we ask Him to act how we think He should act. Then we run to our drugs of choice if He does neither. Do we really know what’s best for us? Do we really want a God who acts like a limited self-centered babbling human? We’d have to answer in the negative, if we are honest with ourselves.
Therefore, if we want to experience daily victory, we must come to the realization that He alone knows what’s best for us. We must also realize that I’m the only one who loses when I make God into my image. If He is just like me, He can’t help me. He would have no more insight or power than I do.
The requisite of real faith is to trust that our God knows better about what we need than we do and that only as the God of Scripture can He keep us free from our repeated sinful behaviors. Faith means to believe that He exists, is a good God who only wants the best for us, and as God has the power to help us. As secure children of God, our Father truly does know best.
“S”et Free Nowww
“Dang it! I fell back into that trap again!” This is what I said to myself yesterday as I finally let the Spirit break into my thinking. I had gone back to living by my daily to-do list. I kept referring back to it each time I finished a needed task rather than listening to Jesus by asking, “What’s next?” And I wondered why my joy was being drained. Duh! This process of retraining our brains sure is a drag at times.
How about you? Is your daily life driven by rules (insert your to-do list) or by relationship? Having a set list of rules is much easier to live by than relationship. “Hey, I have the 10 Commandments. I’m doing okay. I’m not breaking any of them. I’m feeling pretty satisfied right now as I got my to-do list accomplished. ” Sure you’re not breaking them, but you’re breaking Jesus’ heart. Sure you got stuff done, but was it temporary satisfaction or the eternal kind?
If your focus is on your set list each day, it certainly can’t be on Jesus. Yet God wants to speak with us face to face (Deut. 5:4). Jesus desires that we listen to and follow Him (Jn. 10:27). How can we do that if we are facing and listening to our to-do lists?
Lists keep us in control. Are we not our greatest problem? Listening keeps Jesus in control. Isn’t He the source of all that need? Freedom from your drug of choice starts with who you listen to each day. Control or freedom, which one will you choose today?
“S”et Free No“W”ww