As we travel through life we can choose to face each day one of two ways. Firstly, you can face it with your head down burdened with fear, pain, regret and bound in addiction and suffering. You can allow the world to chew you up and spit you out into a pit of sand where every time you try to stand back up you just sink and fall deeper into despair. The more you fight and try to do it on your own the deeper in you get until you're up to your neck in the world, barely able to breath or cry out for help. But see, if you look at this life in a secondary manor you won't ever have to face that. See if you willing to humble yourself and call out, a voice will hear from the other side of the battle and bring the light into your world of darkness. Your feet will be forever firmly planted on the solid bedrock giving you a perfect foundation to build your future so long as you are willing to admit that you can't do this thing called life on your own. Not only that but you must be willing to lay down yourself and carry on your life for another, another who is much greater and did the exact same thing for you! Are you the first or would you rather be the latter?
Some of you can already understand this and are the latter cause you have already laid down your life, called upon the name of the Lord and been washed in the blood and set free. Praise God! However, there are some of you right now that are reading this that never have or maybe you're the person who has given it over to the Lord but you feel like at every turn you're just being assaulted and battered by the enemy. You look continue to head into each day with your head up but by the end you have taken three steps back for every foot forward and your goals and dreams seem so far away. You shout into your pillow and scream through tears of pain as you look at your past and can only hold onto the failures that you see in your life wondering where your victory lies. You can't break the addiction, you can't seem to see the light on other side of the storm, you still seem to be a prisoner of your past, and each night you weep wishing for a greater purpose and to get out of this rut, you have given up on the things you love and bring you joy, you have no song of praise or victory or joy. The Lord has a simple question for you, why are you fighting the He has already claimed victory over?
6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. (Ephesians 1:6-7 NLT)
See Jesus is standing there right beside you in the storm, but you're looking straight through Him! You need to lay down your burden because He has already paid the price for you, He has already wiped away the stain of the past, He has gone before you and prepared for you a victory over the enemy, He has taken those chains weighing you down, He has fought off every failure that has come your way. It is time you start leaning on Him and now is the time to walk fully into the redemption that He has given you! No longer will you be called unworthy, no longer will you live in shame or regret, no longer will you live in fear, no longer will you suffer without a savior to wipe away your tears, no longer will your past haunt you, no longer will the enemy hold the weight of sin over you, no longer will your name be smeared by the enemy.
“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it. (Revelation 2:17 NLT)
God has found you worthy because He is full of grace and mercy. You have called upon is name and surrendered yourself unto Him. He is now your stronghold, your bridge of troubled water, your salvation in a lost and dying world, your lily in the valley, your peace, your sanctity, your salvation, your redeemer, your victor! The Lord tells us in Revelation 2:17 that you are so loved that He will provide to you a stone with a new name that only you will understand. I don't know about you, but I am ready for my new name directly from the throne room, I am ready for my white robe, I am ready to walk in my redemption and stand before the God of Heaven and Earth and proclaim that He alone is mine and I am His!
11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13 NKJV)
You are no longer that old person that you once were. It is time for you to rise up and claim the victory that God has provided for you by His love, grace and mercy. Lay your burden down, wash yourself in the blood, let Jesus be your firm foundation and solid rock. Thank God for the redemptive covenant and live each day looking for that Blessed Hope that is Jesus Christ! He's not done with you yet and this new life that He has given you is just the first chapter in your forever journey, so be a light to the nations. Call out to the lost like yourself and be prepared to sit with the broken just as Christ sat with you when were sinking in despair. Take up your new name! May the Lord bless and strengthen you in this season and hour!
Comments