Pray
Good afternoon brothers and sisters in Christ,
It has been a summer full of God’s blessing from beginning to end. In June when our missions training began, v.b.s. was on our heels and just the summer in general I remember I was extremely overwhelmed with what was going to happen in the next couple of weeks. During our vacation bible school I slept at church the whole week because I didn’t want to have to commute back and forth form home. During those nights on my office futon I didn’t have much to do other than watch YouTube clips, workout or spend time with some of the people that were in the area. I quickly found out during that time that my life was beginning to be very overwhelming and there a couple of time that I had a panic attack. It seemed like the everything around me was closing in on me and I could not do anything. I was enslaved to my own thinking. One of the brothers from a church out in Torrance, California gave me this analogy:
“A baby elephant, when it is born, is chained up to a pole. It is chained up to that pole even as it grows up and gets bigger. When it is full grown it still feels that the chain holds him back eve though he could crush it.” (Dr. Issac)
This is the main weapon that the enemy uses against believers and non-believers.
“When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and a father of lies.” (John 8:44b)
It is amazing how true this is. Whenever you have some sort of lie about yourself, this is not coming from God, rather it is coming from the devil. A lot of times in my sermons, conversations, and interactions I remind people that we are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. This is a hard truth and it may hurt our feelings, but it is a truth that leads us to a Savior. So many of us want to run away from the truth and fall into the lies of the enemy because it gives us more immediate consolation, but for the person who wants to remain steadfast in the the LOVE of God we must run to the TRUTH of God. If we are driven by our emotions, then we are enslaved to our emotions and we will never be free. But if we take our minds captive to the thought of Christ, we will experience true freedom as the Creator has designed for us to experience.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Jesus came into this world to die for our sins so that we don’t die to ourselves by our own thinking. He literally breaks those chains that hold us back to live in the fullness that God has designed for us to have. When one embraces Jesus as Lord an Savior, he is letting go of the world and running towards eternal joy.
Running the race,
Pastor DJ