I’m so glad that you have come back again for part 2! Yesterday we learned that we need to learn what love is for real in order to have a solid foundation to have any type of success in our lives at all. Now that we have begun a brand new year, wouldn’t it be incredible to have a head start in having success in every area of your life just by knowing the 5 truths and important steps to take in each day of your life that will propel you forward and take you places you’ve only dreamed of before?!
Let’s move on to the second truth that we all know and do if we are going to be successful in our lives!
2. Learn to do things that you don’t feel like doing
I have learned that in order to please God and to be in a position to stay connected to Him that you have to do things you do not always feel like you want to do. I cannot tell you how many times that I have had to go to people and say I am sorry for things that I really did not feel like I did wrong. My flesh pulled with every ounce of strength to be right and not have to admit that I was wrong. I will to tell you though that it is very freeing to do things the way that God says to do them!
Even though I did not want to say I am sorry because I opened myself up to hearing the famous 'I told you so', I knew that in order to have peace in my own life that I would have to get right with the person and with God. When you do not have peace in your life, then you need to find out where you have been disobedient. Ask yourself where have you mistreated someone, or what you have done that you knew not to do but went ahead and justified it anyway?
What did you do that you knew you shouldn't have done, or what have you done wrong that you didn’t realize was wrong? Did you say something that you shouldn’t have said? If you are miserable, depressed, and sad all of the time you need to realize that it is not a condition that you need to live in! Depression and sadness is usually linked to disobedience somewhere in our lives…though most will not say that to be the case. We can rise above the things in our lives that pull at us and weigh us down, but we need to live a life of obedience above all else to experience the joy and freedom that awaits us!
3. Seek forgiveness often, and recognize sin for what it really is!
We all need to get onto our knees and ask God to forgive us and to show us where we have messed up. Ask Him to show you what you did wrong. Even ask Him to show you what it is that you have failed to do. Sometimes it is our lack of effort that is a type of disobedience to the Lord. An example from my own life is when I would do something wrong, or talk to someone rudely, felt like I was better than someone else, simply didn’t keep my word, or made an excuse to better justify my actions, I would walk around absolutely miserable, sad, down in the dumps, or just plain irritated in general and I wasn’t able to figure out why.
That is until I searched my heart and asked the Lord to show me why I was feeling all of those things! He is faithful and said if you seek, you will find! So being faithful like He is, I would recall in my mind the exact thing(s) where I was in disobedience, or had sinned and simply excused it because I didn’t consider it to be a big deal. All sin is a big deal! All disobedience is sin!
All of the small things that we tend to ignore or make excuses for are all big things in the eyes of the Lord. Nothing is small in the eyes of our God. Think of it this way. There is no one sin that is bigger than another sin. All sin holds the same value in the eyes of God whether it is gossiping about another person, lying, or murder, they are the same to the Lord.
All of the things we do in our lives that we look at as being tiny or insignificant are all regarded by the Lord as being extremely valuable and significant! For instance, we might not even realize that we have hurt another person by the shortness in our attitude when we are stressed or have had a tough day. God absolutely hates it when we mistreat other people regardless of the reasons and justifications we may have to give.
Why do we do most of the things that we do to others? Is it because of our own hurt and pain, or could it run much deeper than that? Could it be that we have been disobedient to the Most High God, and our spirit knows that deep within us, and yet we go on denying the truth or pretend it doesn’t exist? How long will we continue to minimize the truth and be deceived by our own hands?
The consequences of disobedience are great! You can’t possibly experience true joy, peace, love, faith, or any of the fruits of the spirit in your life unless you are connected to the Lord through obedience to His word. In disobedience through the smallest of thing, that is sin and sin separates us immediately from the connection we desperately need in order for us to live in this life! It is like we are babies connected to God through a spiritual umbilical cord where His life flows through to us via that connection. When we sin, or disobey, our connection to God is clamped just like a garden hose that gets a crimp in it where the flow is totally stopped.
Nothing comes out, and if you can’t get the water to flow out of that hose, eventually all of the beautiful flowers in your garden will wither and die because they didn’t get the nourishment they needed in order to flourish and survive. We need to remove the crimp in our connection to the Lord by repenting of our sin, and seek to experience a greater conviction concerning the things that are sin and disobedience.
When you are in disobedience, there is nothing that you can do to make yourself feel better for more than a moment. You can mask your symptoms by shopping, eating, drugs, alcohol, moving, switching relationships, pornography, or a multitude of other “quick” fixes, but unfortunately, the heavy feelings will linger within you and make you miserable until you get on your knees or your face before God to search your heart and repent.
To repent means to turn away from and go the other direction from your sins and disobedient choices. It doesn’t mean that you simply say I’m sorry God and then pick up where you just left off by going out and doing it all over again. If you will let His forgiveness wash through your heart and cleanse out the sin that weighs your spirit down, you will find that you will no longer be clueless why we get moody, down in the dumps, or irritated. We can be empowered to look at ourselves first before looking outward to point the finger and judge others for why we feel the way we do.
There came a point in my life where there was nothing made me happy. Not shopping, not being with someone, not eating…nothing at all! I have to tell you though, each time that I took the time to get alone with God, (even if it meant that I had to slip away into the bathroom away from all of the commotion), and I asked Him what it is that I did wrong, I am telling you something huge!
Just as a video can be replayed in slow motion, I was recalled to what I had done in my day or even to a totally different day where I believe I made the Lord very sad with me. That thing I did would play in my mind as clearly as when it actually was happening! I would be so ashamed, and feel such pain for not even realizing or even consciously choosing to ignore what I had done. By being able to see where I was wrong, my heart actually began to soften because the Lord loves me enough to show me where I fail and then He goes so far as to forgive that sin!
It’s amazing the way He loves us! That is why it is important to know who God is. Not only to know WHO He is, but to learn about His Character. You know, take the time to find out why He does what He does, and also to know what He wouldn’t and couldn’t do. Then follow after and strive to be like Him in what we do, and how we act!
4. Let go of offenses and instead decide to live to forgive
We each have reasons that we could use to justify becoming offended or hurt with another person. I believe we should be very careful that we don’t decide to hold onto that offense without first bringing it to the Lord. I believe that we should all learn to trust the Lord more with our emotions, and not fall into the temptations that entice us to be angry, hurt, bitter or offended.
Those emotions and responses cause us to become separated not only from our peace and happiness, but ultimately from the Lord. So if you are depressed, sad, angry, hostile, bitter, resentful, or confused, begin with asking the Lord what it is that you did. From there He is only going to show you what you did! Even if you didn’t do anything wrong at all to someone else, but you became offended in response to their actions, He will deal with you about your response. He will never deal with you about someone else. Only about you and what you did or didn’t do!
Even if we have the right to be angry, or offended, we do not have the right to stay that way and to carry the pain that was meant for our Lord to carry for us! If you will stop yourself when you feel down and go to the Lord in prayer to seek Him about why you are feeling the way you are, I assure you that not only will you begin to let go of all of the things that try to make you mad, sad, angry, hurt, offended, rude, and so on…you will be able to recognize actions and attitudes that need to be changed within yourself.
Each time I have taken responsibility before the Lord for my own actions, it is amazing how the love of God floods my heart. Then I am actually able to forgive the person that I was holding something against, and I am filled with joy and peace once again. My connection to the Lord is in an instant restored by my recognizing where I was wrong and by being accountable to Him for my own actions. God said that our sins will not be forgiven if we don’t forgive those who have wronged us!
So it is imperative to know and understand the importance that forgiveness plays in our lives! When we withhold forgiveness from another person it is like saying that we are even more powerful than God! Why? Because even God Himself does not withhold forgiveness even when He has all the right to! After all, He is God and can do what He wants right? But He doesn’t do that and neither should we!
I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to be responsible for classifying myself as God’s equal by refusing to forgive someone who has wronged me! Not only can your sins not be forgiven if you won’t forgive, but you will damn yourself straight to hell and believe the whole way there that you were right! Very dangerous!
It’s better to just obey the Lord when He says to forgive and not allow it to become a foothold that the devil can use to walk into your life later on. We are actually commanded by Jesus Himself to forgive each person 70 times 7 in a single day! That is 490 times that we are supposed to forgive another person every day that they do wrong against us! When we refuse to forgive them we are simply refusing to obey the Lord. That is sin!
5. Let forgiveness lead the way to change
The first time I really took notice that God was changing things about me, I was astounded that I had been so blind to the destructive things that were alive inside of me. How was it possible that I was just now being able to see these things about myself, and I was blind as a bat to them only a short time ago? I believe the answer is found in forgiveness.
I began to purposely seek those I had things against so that I could forgive them for what I felt they had done to me. Then I did something that I never realized was so necessary for my own survival! I began to search my own life and heart to see where I was holding unforgiveness against my own self! That’s right, not only did I blame myself for a multitude of mistakes that I had made throughout my life, but I was refusing to let go of it all and lay it at the cross where Jesus died to take all of my sins and shame.
I was bound by unforgiveness as if I were already locked within a prison cell. The heart that I was supposed to be free within was keeping me hostage and prisoner. And the sickest part about it was that I knew that I needed to forgive if I ever wanted to be free and see real change in my life. I just never realized that by not forgiving myself I would never truly be free.
So I began to take notice of my life in a way that I never had before. I didn’t want anything to be hidden or buried so that I couldn’t see it and get rid it. If it didn’t please God then it didn’t belong there.
I began to see certain things that I did to other people when I would act a particular way to someone and it began to repulse me inside. My attitude was very ugly and I verged upon being critical. I was short with people, and treated them as though they were the reason and blame for all of my problems.
I had a problem with my temper, and wasn’t ashamed to let people know what I felt. I actually believed that if something took to long that it was the other person’s fault and in all of my pride I actually believed that I could have done a better job than they were doing!
Among everything else that was wrong with me, something miraculous began to happen inside of me. At first, I found myself catching the things I was doing wrong, but it wasn’t until right after I would do it. Then I would get frustrated with myself because I knew better and still did it anyway. I began to hate my behaviors, but I felt helpless to stop.
Whatever it is, when God begins to deal with you and do surgery on the inside of your heart, it almost seems like you will do that particular thing even more than before! I got to the point where I hated what I was doing so much that I’d have to get on my face before Him…literally, and find myself pleading with Him to get the pride out of my heart, and help me not to talk rudely or have a negative attitude toward someone else etc.
You will get to a point in your life where you are so sick of not doing what you know you are supposed to do, and having habits that you cannot conquer or change without God that you will have no choice except to submit to what He wants if you ever want real change in your life!
It is not easy, and it is a lot of work sometimes, but I can tell you that from my own life and experience that it is much harder to live in everyday of your life sad, miserable, angry and depressed than to begin to search your own heart and get it right with God. Let forgiveness open the door to your heart and lead the way to permanent change in your life!
The next question that you should ask yourself is simple. Am I really satisfied and excited to live my life as I am right now for the rest of my life? If your answer is no and you want more for your life than you have ever had, then you have to understand that you will need to do something that you have never done before.
You must take steps to make different choices…even when it might seem or feel impossible to do that!
If you wait to feel like it, then you may wait passing your life by and then get to the end of it and realize that someone once told you something about trusting God and allowing Him to help you change so that you could have a good life…but you never took a chance. You never stepped forward to take responsibility for yourself, and now you have nothing to show for your life. But if you will believe and if you really want the best life that you can imagine, then God has promised it is possible to have that!
I have found that many times we aren’t living the best life that we possibly can as a result of the things that we believe in our hearts and speak out with our mouths. Circumstances will have much influence on the way that we live of course, but I found something that when I applied it to my life, it revolutionized it in every way! In the scripture it talks about speaking out the good things of God over your life.
It also says if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will have whatsoever you will say. In fact it says to call forth those things that be not as though they were! What exactly does that mean you might ask? It simply means that whatever you confess with your mouth, and combine with your faith that those things can actually begin to take shape in your life! Sounds unbelievable I know, but God can not lie and what He says is true.
Don’t be confused though. This is a spiritual principle that will work for the good or the bad. It doesn’t discriminate. So it will work whether you confess positive things over your life, or if you choose to confess negative and critical things over your life.
See, your words are containers that have power in them. So every word you speak becomes like a seed that you plant in the ground. You water it with your belief in it. If you believe that you will never get ahead in life and that whatever can go wrong will, then that is the belief you are watering your confessions with.
However, if you believe with all that you are that each day is better than the last, and that everything you touch turns to gold, and people like you, and you have great opportunities everywhere you turn, then those things will begin to manifest in your life! Maybe not the same day you begin to speak them out of your mouth, but if you keep consistently saying them, you will see opportunities come your way that wouldn’t have before.
You will see your life begin to have joy and peace that you have never known because you are rejecting the negative life stealers and accepting the best that God has awaiting for you in your life.
Join me again tomorrow as I continue to cover the important truths that will change your lives if you allow them to, and apply them to your life! I'd love to hear what you have to say so don't forget to leave me a comment! Be blessed and I can't wait to hear from you!
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