Category: Devotions

Change the Channel

 

"They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 2 Timothy 4:4

 

You've got to change the voice that you are listening to.  Change the voice that is talking in your head.  What kinds of things are you listening to?  What people are you listening to?  What are you feeding yourself?  Are you poisoning yourself with words that go against the word of God? 

 

When I go to sleep most nights, I play gospel music or the Bible as my lullaby.  When I heard someone say to me for a 50+ time the importance of guarding my eye-gate and ear-gates, I realized that a lot of the music I listened to promoted things that did not speak to me the way I needed.  I needed to hear praise and worship, I needed to hear the word constantly.  Now I am sensitive to complaining, self-pity parties (well almost immune to my own), and anything that does not speak life into a situation. 

 

Our minds are like computers.  If you a write a program to solve some problem, that is what is will do.  If you tell it to print xyz every minute, that is what it will do.  Likewise, with your mind, if you program it with negativity, complacency, complaining, and self-hatred programming, that is exactly what will be produced in your mind and eventually your life…everything involving you.  If you were raised to by a nagging, negative mother/father that only pointed out your faults, that is all that you will see.  Honestly, I think that all of our problems are a result of some negatively programming.  You have to be strong enough to recognize that within yourself.  Stand up and recognize these things.  You cannot expect to progress and produce anything positive if you are too weak to change it.  Only you can decide once and for all to put an end to it and allow God the freedom to change the channel for you.  Stop believing the lies before it starts coming out of you.

 

"Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'"  Mark 7:14-15

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"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17

Adding To Your Testimony

 

'Then Jesus instructed him not to tell anyone what had happened. He said, "Go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed."'  Luke 5:14

 

Every situation and circumstance you face adds to your testimony.  Testimonies are like resumes, detailing your experience, your skills, and your triumphs.  They tell where you have been, what things you have overcome, what you are capable of dealing with.  Like in Romans 8:28, "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God-those whom he has called according to his plan." (GWT) 

 

Now so that you know, God does not cause bad upon us.  John 10:10 says that "The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life."  God will use that bad situation or that diagnosis to make it all work out for His good.  You never know, He may put someone in your life that can use your insight or learn from how you overcame a situation. 

 

I'm not gonna sit here and act like I want to go through bad things.  Quite frankly, I can most definitely learn from the experiences of others.  (And for clarification, your testimony does not simply highlight the bad, but every single blessing God has laid upon you….and if you try to count all of those I am sure you'd stop complaining.)  I don't!  And if I remember correctly, that was not God's intent for us.  But where there is a will, there is a way…hence the fall of man.  But God saw fit to save us and redeem us through Christ.  He calls some of us to suffer or go through more difficult things than other people.  Just know that it is for the benefit of another…not just you.  Everything you go through adds to that testimony–and truthfully to your life!  Can you imagine where you would be without some of those experiences?  Can you be honest with yourself and identify the lessons you learned in the midst of the storm?  Be like the leper in the scripture above and be a public testimony of the magnificence of God.  To truly show Christ we have to endure in sufferings as He did.

 

"But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood"  Galatians 1:15-16

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"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17