Recycle Yourself

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear. Fear is a spiritual force and Satan uses it to keep people down. Instead, we champion faith and trust in God. Obedience is important in following God's commands and replacing negative things with positive ones. Seeking the Lord and abiding in Him brings blessings. It's a process of changing from the old self to the new self. The Lord loves us unconditionally and His love casts out fear. We should declare and appreciate the things about ourselves that God loves. His love is revealed through sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of His word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to His perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Zechariah 8.13 It shall come to pass that as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don't be afraid. Let your hands be strong. What is this saying? It's darkest before the dawn? Thomas Fuller used the proverb. The world loves that one, stands on it all the time to make it through tough times. We like the idea that the troubles we're struggling through are helping us to get us to where things will be wonderful. That's a fine thing. But there's a better thing. How about getting from bad times to good times without the struggle? How about killing the struggling part off? The Lord's way is a promise, not a struggle. It's being calm in a storm and then no storm. It's being in such a bad place, everyone around you sees you as an object lesson for failure, and then being a success with no struggle but peace. It doesn't mean there isn't going to be a process. There's going to be a process. But it does mean that the process won't bother you. Isn't that better than struggling until dawn? I certainly think so. How do we live in that promise? How do we get into it? Obedience. Simple as that. Obedience is an act of obeying and it's a sphere of jurisdiction. But it's also the quality or state of being obedient, submissive to the command of authority, willing to obey, to conform to, or comply with, to follow the commands or guidance of. Start talking about obedience and people get their backs up. They start talking about freedom and rights and you can't tell them and how they're not a sheep. Being a sheep is not an insult. Learn about them. But what does Jesus say about his commands and his father's commands? Come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11, 28-30 Now what is it that he wants us to cut off from ourselves? What is it he wants us to be obedient about? Well, for starters, the Lord wants us to put away the thing that brought God's wrath on the children of disobedience. Colossians 3, 5-11 Sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking also need to go. This is all part of the old us. This is the sinful nature. God is righteous. Sin is unrighteous. God cannot embrace that. God is love. He's not looking to smite you. He's looking to love you. If you won't walk in what he can embrace, he will love you, but he'll love you as you have chosen to do your thing, and you'll go right into hell. He won't stop you. You have the choice. What he wants is to love you into his arms, not love you into forever prison. We don't need the old man. The absolute 100% best things of old man are a pale imitation of the very least of things. In new man, in Christ Jesus, we can become and have become new, new spirit, and being renewed in knowledge after the image of God. Now, you might ask how giving up so much can be a light yoke. Well, firstly, all that stuff is negative and is bad stuff. We should be happy to get rid of it. In addition to that, God wants us to replace it with other things. Colossians 3, 12-17. A heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, perseverance, bearing with one another, forgiving each other, walking in love, letting the peace of God rule our hearts, letting the Word dwell in us richly, and in word or deed, doing everything we do in the name of the Lord Jesus, doing everything with faith, thanking the Father through Jesus. So, out with all the bad things and in with all the good things. That sounds pretty good. Secondly, we don't give anything up. We don't have to walk away from our favorite of favorite things. See, what changes is us, not what we're able to do. I'm doing all the drinking I want to do. I drink all the alcohol I want to. But that amount is zero because I don't want to. I haven't had to stop doing it. I haven't had to deprive myself. I haven't had to use willpower. My social life didn't end. My ability to relax didn't disappear. I didn't have to sweat my way through the day, dreaming of having a cold one, and then feel the horror when I realized that I can't. No, I changed. I stopped drinking because I stopped drinking. It wasn't overnight, but it also wasn't a struggle. As I changed, my wants changed. As my wants were changing, God changed me to align with them because as I change and open myself to receive, I let the Lord work in me a new work. After all, I am a new creation. Why shouldn't everything change and change organically, not a series of do-nots, just behavior I no longer do, things I no longer participate in, stuff that isn't fun anymore, all of it replaced with other things, things I participate in, things I do, stuff that is fun. As we abide in the Lord, we get close to him. Getting close to him puts us in a position to be blessed, emotionally, spiritually, in everything we do. We're just blessed. Getting under his wings enables us to change from who we are to who he wants us to be. There's healing in those wings, healing of everything. If we seek the Lord first, all the good things will follow, Matthew 6, 33. When we seek the good things, we often forget to include the Lord on our ride. You see, we think of things as literal things, money, cars, house, achievement. No, that can be part of it. But Jesus is talking about all the good things, the things in our spirit, the things in our mind, the way we look at things, the way we say things, activities that we do, all of it, all the good things. By seeking him with intent, side by side, hand in hand, we align ourselves with the place of blessing in the Lord. That's a place of blessing, not a bank account. The place of blessing is a great place. That's the place where promises live. That's where we get saved. That's where our spirits are sealed and begin to inform our souls. And then our bodies of what is what. That's where we get to be a blessing to others as well as receiving from the Lord himself. In fact, we receive in order to bless, because in the Lord, we're all servants, John 13, 10-17. We bless and we get blessed in a wonderful cycle where we work together to build each other up in area after area of life. And if we don't have, we can't give of it. And we're called to give, first to God in our tithe, and then as he directs. It's wonderful. It isn't just money. This isn't a financial thing. It's an everything thing. It's a total change of our lives, inside and out. What we read, what we watch, what we listen to, our perspective, who we are and how we live. It's a process, a lifelong process. Moving from where what we want was the most important to where we want what he wants. We want what and who he is. Because we're being renewed, things will change. It can change personality. It can change career. It can change everything. Not by giving up or being a bastion of self-control, avoiding that which we really want, but we just can't do it. No. It's total desire swap. It's total thinking change. Seeking the things of the Lord actively changes our insides. It changes our outsides. When we get into the Word and make the Word key and the pillar of our life, it changes the very atmosphere around us in ways that we notice and in ways that we don't even realize until someone points it out to us. And as we change, we change those who we influence. Not by beating them over the head with the Bible or screaming at them about the evils of that thing that they're doing or enjoying, but by blessing, by love, by showing all the great things that having a relationship with the Lord brings, by being a light and an example. They want to get in on the great thing we have going. Now, that's a witness the world needs. Don't be afraid. Choose to keep your hands strong by choosing to stick to the Lord. By reading the Word, getting close to Jesus in and through praise, it's the key to so many things. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Nehemiah 8.10. Honoring God for being God, thanking Him for everything, praising Him when things go well, praising Him more when things don't seem so cheery, letting your intentions inform your outlook, not letting feelings tell you what you should experience, letting the Word declare what you should experience, praising the Lord in whatever circumstance you're in, not for the circumstance, but for the opportunity to let the Lord show His mercy, love, peace, and grace. The situation will be peaceful for you, and you'll have peace in the transfer from troubled times to blessed times, from old you to new you. It's a process. It is a process. There are steps. It takes time, but it's okay. We get to go from what you could or couldn't do to what He can do in and through you. It's a promise. You can test Him and trust Him, receive it, believe it, and walk in it. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Philemon. We need to believe in everyone. We need to have faith in everyone. We need to trust the Lord and seek His will about everyone, the ones you like, the ones you dislike, the ones who can do anything, and the ones who can do nothing right at all. The Lord can do amazing things with all of us. The Spirit of God can renew us. It can bring out our best. And the Lord wants to make us the best that we can be, the best that He can make us in Jesus, which, if you think about it, is a pretty best best. Look at the simple love and appreciation Paul has for this runaway slave who formerly was useless, who he is here referred to as useful, and in Colossians 4.9 is called the faithful and beloved brother. Now, that's some turnaround. And it is the selfsame turnaround that God wants for all of us because He loves us. As we close, remember that you have birth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this, today God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love and no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you just because you're you. 1 John 4.9-10 tells us, By this God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent His only born Son into the world, that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loved us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.