Dear friends in Christ,
It is spring and everywhere I look the earth is starting to come out of it’s winter sleep. The grass is growing, the trees are budding and it actually does not look like midnight anymore when I get into my car to drive to work in the morning. What a blessing! I want to thank my Heavenly Father for being able to sit here on a lovely spring evening and write another article.
How many times do we think, feel or react in a negative way in our daily lives? People tend to be negative about so many things these days and no one has a problem with raising these negative thoughts and feelings in any conversation. I work with people every hour of my day and I find it is becoming the norm among most people to have a negative attitude towards life in general. Every conversation seems to revolve around the state of our country, the economy, the crime rate, cancer and other diseases, how expensive life is or a saucy topic to gossip about.
The worst thing about it is that we as Christians, who call ourselves God’s children, are joining in and allowing negative thoughts to poison our minds, negative feelings to harden our hears, and negative words to pour from our mouths. Why? Because satan makes it look so attractive for us to join in and give voice to our frustrations, and well, we have a right to speak our minds, don’t we? After all, we are only human and when the world around us is bad, we are allowed to complain about it. Maybe, just maybe if we complain enough, something will be done about all the bad things happening around us, right? WRONG!!!
Dear friends, we have to remember that if we belong to God and if we are born again we do not belong to this world anymore. We are NOT “only human” anymore. John 15:19 proves this: “IF YOU WERE of the WORLD, the world would love it’s own. Yet because YOU ARE NOT OF THE WORLD, but I chose you OUT OF THE WORLD, therefore the world hates you.”
If we call ourselves children of God, we cannot use the excuse of just “being human” anymore. We CANNOT be conformed to the world, we need to be transformed by the renewal of our minds so that we can PROVE what God’s good and perfect Will is. (Rom 12:2.)
The problem we face is that although we can and have to change and focus our thought patterns on God, we do still have human emotions and satan knows this very well therefore he focuses on hitting us where it will have the deepest impact. If he can get us to fall back into our old ways of human thinking, he thinks that he is winning and so he tries to do this through our emotions. He thus makes sure that we are bombarded with negativity from all over in the hope that it will make us negative, scared, tired, jealous and angry, like the rest of the world. The bible warns us against this. 1 Pet 5:8 tells us that the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
I don’t know about you, but I surely will NOT allow the devil to devour me. I belong to God above and satan has no right to steal from me. Jesus warns us that satan will try this in John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
So how do we resist this? How do we stand against satan and refuse to let him steal our God given joy and peace? We find the answer in Philippians 4:8-9 “…whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS…….and the God of peace will be with you.”
Also read Isaiah 26:3.
Dear friends, what the heart is full of, the mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45.) I have made a decision to do this and especially at work where I first noticed it, I am now speaking something positive in reply to anything negative that anyone says to me and I have seen a major shift in the attitude of people who walk into my room. Just a few days ago a man walked in and said to me how nice it is to walk into a room and interact with someone who is always friendly and laughing and kind. Amen! Praise God! I don’t need to be surrounded by negativity and neither do you. It is our God given right to speak life. Try it and see how God changes the attitude of those around you.
Heavenly Father I praise You. I thank You for the life that I can speak because of what You did for me. Help me dear Lord to never allow satan to steal anything from me. Lord Jesus You are everything and You are all I need. Amen.
Be fearless in Christ.
Lizz
( Scriptures are taken from the NKJV unless stated differently.)
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