LIKE A DOG RETURNS TO ITS VOMIT
Too many people live in the shame of yesterday, hard hits from years past, the adversities and shackles of moments we relive, and the shadows we can’t seem to escape. Not many of us have the joy we’d give anything to grasp onto, and we soak in the sweat of efforts trying to break free of the pain, suffering, and misery of every-day life as it oscillates between disappointment and inevitable outcome, one after another. Many who suffer from addiction (of any sort) can’t seem to pull away from the magnet of the flesh towards its vice (Proverbs 26:11). It’s all mental drudgery, and it’s absolutely toxic.
We can all choose to continue this masochistic, arduous path of insanity, or we can choose another way. The only way, that is (John 14:6).
SICK ENOUGH TO CHANGE
If we’re as sick as can be of living the wasteful way we’ve been living, and we’re tired enough of experiencing the radically self-degrading lifestyle we’ve stayed in for only God knows how long, then we have the motivation to get out. That’s all we need. If we aren’t exhausted yet, we may not turn around; we may want to test our sin just a little more. That’s what temptation is: a desire to do something, especially something wrong. Sin is very tempting, even if it’s tiring. But once a threshold a reached, we come running for help, screaming and wailing at the top of our lungs completely outside of ourselves, ready for someone to save us.
Think of the person being drowned in water, and being let up for air. Think upon that level of desperation. That’s how desperate we are for a better answer to life after we’ve suffered enough from our sins. The hands of the enemy have been dirty throughout all of time, and now it’s time to get our own hands clean with Jesus’s blood.
GOD’S WILL IS FOR US TO REPENT AND CHOOSE HIM
It’s possible to make any change to our lives that is in God’s will. It’s certainly in God’s will for us to stop sinning, for us to stop our insanity, to put an end to our addictions, and to change our lifestyle to placing Him first rather than ourselves. He will always approve of that, no matter what it takes. That’s His desire, for us to turn to Him and to give ourselves to Him completely. That is exactly the reason He sent Jesus to die for us on the cross and rise again from the dead, so we could choose God and find Him in Christ.
HE STANDS AT THE DOOR AND KNOCKS
Jesus is not far from us. We are much further from Him because we choose to hide ourselves in our shame. We decide not to answer the door until the very last moment, some of us. But He knocks hoping we’ll answer, let Him in and have a relationship (Revelation 3:20). He wants to be closer than a brother Proverbs 18:24). Jesus has the keys to death, hell, and the grave, and has given us the one gift that can save us from that horrible eternal place of endless suffering: salvation. All we need to do is accept His gift, by placing faith in Him as Lord. And that means putting Him first in our lives. Praying, reading the Bible, joining a church community to find spiritual support, and to learn to love others the way He loves us. Everything we do and say should reflect the gratitude towards Jesus for having turned us away from a meaningless life of sin, and into a purposeful life of serving Him as Lord.
HOPEFUL PROMISES TO CLING TO
Once we’re sick enough of dying inside, we can live forevermore in Jesus Christ. We can turn off the lies in our head from the enemy, the terrible lies claiming we are powerless and hopeless and alone. We tune into the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus, and we can listen to the hopeful, faithful, loving and bold truth telling us we are conquerors in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:37), that Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33), that death has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55), that Jesus is alive and standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55-56), that He is making a place for us where He is (John 14:3). There is hope!! There is a future in Jesus Christ. There is no other way to that future but through the name of Jesus, and it is the most powerful name that there ever was, or will ever be.
LIVE IN THE MIGHTY NAME OF JESUS
Take a stand against the devil. Take back your life by giving it to Christ. Repent and turn away from your old ways, and think of them no more. Remember what God has done for you and keep Him closer than anyone or anything else in life. Pray boldly and fearlessly, and pray everything you ask for in Jesus name. Give Him praise and glory and honor, and celebrate the victory He’s given you over eternal damnation. There is life to live, and now is the time to live it.
Go, and give it all for Jesus Christ! I pray in Jesus mighty name! Amen!
Photo by Muhammad Irfan Baloch on Unsplash
