Blog

How many of you played sports growing up?  I didn’t play organized sports, but we sure did on the street in front of our house.  

And what I remember the most is the amazing comebacks.  One moment you are sad because you are losing and the next thing you are shouting because the game turned around and you won the game of dodge ball, kick ball, or baseball.  

Think about who keeps score in the game called LIFE? God, the enemy and us- the latter two I just mentioned are terrible score keepers.  God is the eternal score keeper, and that’s not a bad thing.  

How many of you feel like you are coming from behind and you despise how hard you try you can’t catch up– as in you take two steps forward and then find yourself taking three steps backwards in an area of your life? 

Ironically, we settle for shadow existence and allow the shade of defeat to keep us in the uncomfortable lane of life.  

What if I told you that is exactly what the enemy planned for us? I don’t think it would be a surprise.  I believe we know that it is the enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  

Yet, we allow the lie of yesterday to rob us of truth today.  

Is there a lie that you have believed about yourself – note I asked if there was a lie rather than a truth.  Why, because human nature magnifies the worst rather than the good.  We struggle to believe the best in ourselves.  It’s a strange phenomenon how we will magnify the bad stuff and minimize the good stuff.  

What did your lies tell you today?  

Lies will tell us things like, “Well, you’re not fully sorry for what you did, so you don’t get to enjoy today. You really didn’t learn the lesson from your mistake, so why would you be trusted with anything good today? You couldn’t control your mouth last week and keep from saying that hurtful thing to your mother, so what makes you think you can today? You couldn’t say ‘no’ to the advances of that attractive person last month, so what makes you think tonight will be any different? You haven’t been able to kick that addiction so far, so what makes you think today could be your day to change? You don’t have enough faith to be healed.”  

For the sake of time, I think I’ll stop the list.

It’s perplexing to me how the enemy’s native language is a fusion of lies and accusations, and yet we stop and oblige him when it comes to that one area of areas where we give up on ourselves.

Think about the devil as the unholy antithesis of Christ. 

The devil lies. 

Christ is the truth. 

The devil condemns. 

Christ rescues. 

Christ never lies, and He took the condemnation against our sin on Himself. 

Satan only lies, and he lies to condemn people. 

Christ died to free people from condemnation with the truth that he wants relationship with us.

The enemy wants you to believe God’s ashamed of you. He doesn’t want you to know Jesus already carried your shame.

Here’s the truth: the devil knows that if he can keep us looking back to the failures of yesterday, we won’t see the victories of today. If we continue to keep our heads down, walking in the same track of defeat and self-fulfilling prophecies, then we won’t see God do something new in us.

God doesn’t love a future version of us. God loves us now.