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"Man, left to his own devices, will always move in a direction that benefits himself."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 71.
Is there any doubt that left to our own ways we will work to benefit ourselves. Sure there are those saints in this world who seem to be able to deny self in ways that look to be nothing short of heavenly. I hate to sound so negative, but I'd bet that those saints are just like you and me at times when it comes to our self serving ways.
I don't say this to bring those amazing people down. I'm in awe of them and hold them in the highest of regards. The reality is that they too are human. I don't care if you are the most saintly of a saint, your humanness is something that can't be denied on this side of heaven. Until we all are in that place God has made for us after this life is over, our humanness is something that will rise up in one way or another to make my previous statement just as true for the worst of the worst as it is for the best of the best.
For some of us caught in victim thinking these thoughts make us feel like just giving up. I totally get it. I've been there more than once in my life and know I'll be there again. Praise God, that's not where He will have us stay for too long. Why? We have things to do - big things that have Kingdom sized implications. These things are too big for our petty ways to get in the way of what God is doing. Even when our petty ways are in control, God still sees us as something more than I think we can ever really believe. How is it that we can be so loved by this God?
It isn't that we will ever be totally rid of the fact that we tend to do things for our own benefit that should give us hope. No, that kind of hope is a false hope. It is when we realize and start to depend on how much God loves us in spite of our self centered ways that change can begin to happen. Love truly does have a power that is beyond our belief when it is God's love that we stand on and believe in.
Take a look at today's Bible reading with me.
Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs. Zephaniah 3:17 (MSG)
God is among us. He isn't surprised by our self serving ways. He is there to save us from those ways. Those ways really don't benefit us in the ways we think they will. He has our back. He is a calming force in our lives. When the needs and wants of our live are making demands from us from all sides, His calm is there for us to grab onto and hold. It is the songs of love and delight that He sings over us that ushers in a calm that we just can't explain. Can you feel that calm reaching deep down into your soul right now?
Left to our own devices.... That's the key to today's thought. It is when we are left to ourselves - left alone, left wanting, left hopeless, left wandering who we are - that the panic of victim thinking can ruin our victor's life. When we step back and see that God is there with us - there cheering us on - that we begin to let His calm enter our lives. That calm is what makes it possible to live a life where we set our will down and let His will be what makes the kinds of impact in this world possible our souls long to have.
The sooner we get it into our heads that we are OK before this God that loves us, the sooner we will have a calm about us that this world is starving to see. It isn't our perfection that makes this calm possible. It is the knowing that we are loved in spite of our lack of perfection that makes it possible to live a calm, god-filled, life full of the reality of who God says that we are.
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