whew..... has it really been nearly 5 months since my last post..... YIKES!!! i need to get on it more often.
this post is stirred out of a topic that has been on my heart for some time and really want to touch as many people with it as i can. I am a youth leader at my church and i recently did a series on Beyond the Walls. in my definition walls are the limitations that we have put up in our lives because of things that we have been told, or experiences we have had. i believe there are 6 major things that limit us in our lives and these things will keep us from living up to the potential that God has placed within us. in John 10:10 it says
"A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of" (emphasis mine)
Jesus has given you the potential to live a life better then you could ever dream of, the life he wants for you exceeds any life that you could ever build or hope to have by doing it withing your own limits, on your own.
the 6 areas that i feel are the biggest are
1) How you see yourself
2) Fear
3) Habits and Addictions
4) Guilt and Shame
5) Being a first generation believer in your family
6) Depression
All of these "walls" will limit you because they will keep you from moving forward, stepping up, and moving out of the comfort zone of what you know and think. I'm not gonna go to in depth with these but I want to break them down a bit so that you can see how each one can affect you personally. tonight i will cover three off them with more coming soon....
1) How you see yourself: If you read the stories of Gideon (Judges 6) and Moses (Exodus 2-6) you see that these are two men that thought lowly of themselves. They didn't think they had what it takes to live up to the potential that God had for them. It blows me away though because you soon learn that, with Gods help, they overcame the Walls in their lives and did some pretty amazing things.
If you think that you aren't good enough to do something then chances are that you wont even try to do it. i challenge you to rust God and his word for your life, i promise you will see some amazing things happen.
2) Fear: i could go on all night about fear, its such a huge wall for so many people. we're afraid of what others think, afraid to fail, afraid to let someone down, etc. for many people they feel like they are standing on the edge of a cliff afraid to jump. fear limits you because it will keep you where you are comfortable, you freeze up, unable to move. if that is you, ask for boldness, ask for strength, give it a shot and jump off that "cliff."if you do that you wont look back, you will experience true freedom and and your life will never be the same.
3) Habits and Addictions: habits and addictions can get out of control very easy. i know many times in my life i have found myself dealing with addictions and bad habits and i think to myself "how did i get here? what happened? where did i go wrong." many times that question can be answered by retracing my steps. i look back and see how i allowed one tiny compromise after another to creep into my daily life. eventually they build up into an uncontrollable force in my life that sucks the very life right out of me. our addictions keep us bound as slaves, and until be can learn to break those chains, we sit there staring at a wall.
Jesus desires that every person goes beyond the walls in their life and live up to their potential. it is my prayer that as you read these God has spoken to you about some of the walls in your life and has begun to show you how to overcome. please keep an eye out for the next post with the next three areas and allow god to work in your life to do exceedingly above all you could ask think or imagine.
have a blessed day and thank you for taking time to read my blog.
