Ever tried arguing with yourself?
For example: you want to learn to paint. Though you hadn’t held a brush or touched a canvas previously, a part of you says, “I would love to do it. I know I’ll be good at it. ”
Yet a more persistent voice tweets, “I’ll simply be inept at it. Why would I even dare?” And you banish your original thought into your brain’s trashbin of broken dreams.
Pastor Paul Chase’s (Senior Pastor at Alabang Newlife Christian Center) recent wake-up call: “Stop making decisions based on your old self. If you’ve committed your heart and life to Jesus, start thinking in terms of who you are in Him.”
Even if you had believed otherwise, God declares:
- You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. (Philippians 4:13)
- You are a new creation in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
- You are more than a conqueror. (Romans 8:37)
- His grace is sufficient for you and His power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Pastor Paul suggests: Delete your buts―and its other esoteric versions such as “nevertheless,” “however,” “nonetheless!”
No more excuses! Christ paid dearly for you. If God says you can do it, then you really could! How?
2 Corinthians 10:5: We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Didn’t He bundle His gift of eternal life with all the enabling traits to make you walk godly, productive, victorious? Didn’t He too declare that you can do as He did, even greater?
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these…” (John 14:12)
Yet, this big bully of a word― BUT―butts in, whispering:
“But I’m not talented.”
“But I might just waste my time on something I’m never good enough at.”
“But no one might appreciate my work.”
Pastor Paul reminds, “… put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10); reject thoughts which magnify your old self versus your new state in Christ.
He explained further: Our self-image happened slowly. These thoughts were piled through time, setting and molding us in our own little boxes which have become our comfort―or discomfort―zone.
Come to think of it, someone told me a long time ago: “I wasn’t good enough,” so I grew up believing I would not amount to something―until Jesus set me free from that box and gave me wings to fly.
David, declared by God to be after His heart, never settled for the labels stamped on him by others.
He was a mere shepherd boy and not even part of King Saul’s army when he volunteered to face Goliath―at whose taunts, the whole Israeli army trembled.
His brother Eliab accused David of conceit for even wanting to do the job. King Saul doubted David. He allowed David anyway because he didn’t have much choice. Goliath ridiculed him.
1 Samuel 17: 45: David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”
With one stone from his sling, David struck Goliath dead.
God’s favor surrounded David. But he stood by God’s Word and it made a world of difference.
God has your back too, if indeed Jesus is your Lord and Savior―is your key to having the mind of Christ.
Jesus, I commit my life to you. Be my Savior and my Lord. Teach me to think your thoughts. Crush every negative and vain imagination which used to dictate my decisions and actions in the past; and replace them with thoughts that conform to your Word.
