Out With The Old & In With The New

In order to receive a gift from someone we must stretch forth our arms and grab it with our hands. But if our arms are full of stuff then we wouldn't be able to reach out & take the gift. Our arms would be so full we wouldn't have room to accept anything else. We, in order to accept the gift, would have to either lay down the stuff that we already have in our arms. Or we can just hang on to what we already have and pass on the gift that is being given to us.

The Lord has been speaking to me today about this. He says that in order for us to receive the gifts & blessings He has for us, we must first make room for them & get rid of the stuff (junk) that we are still holding onto.

The Bible says to "....let us lay aside every weight, & the sin which doth so easily beset us, & let us run with patience the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1)
How are we gonna run any race with a bunch of weights on us? That would make no sense to carry a bunch of heavy rocks aroudn if we were to run in a race. We would want to be as light & free feeling as possible. And that is the same way with the Lord. How can He give us something if we are refusing to let go of all the junk? If we are still carrying around "weights", we can't accept anything else.

We need to do an inventory of what we are "collecting" or "carrying" in our house. We need to regularly go through & do a sweep of ourself. We should take out a spiritual mirror & really evaluate ourself. Are we lining up with God? Or are we in our flesh? Are we holding onto guilt, pain, sadness, worries, & frustrations? If we are carrying around unnecessary "stuff" we can't move forward into what God has for us. Philippians 3:13,14 says, ".....forgetting those things which are behind, & reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

It says to forget the things that are behind us & reach forward! It tells us to press toward, which means keep going ahead and not to look back! Why would we even wanna look back at our past? Sometimes it is good to look back and see how far God has brought us but as far as looking back and wanting to dwell in the past, or wanting to hold grudges and hurt feelings from the people of our past, we shouldn't be doing that.
The devil is going to try to keep you from what God wants you to have. He is going to try & get your emotions & mind in such a mess that we don't know if up is down & down is up. The devil is our adversary, his job is to destroy your life. He is going to try & lay all kinds of junk on you. That is why we need to do a regular check on where we are at.

When Satan comes to us to try to fill our mind with junk we need to get our minds on Jesus & what He wants to give us. Keep our heart, mind, & sight on the Lord. Set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:2).

Jesus wants to take out all of the "old" stuff out of us and fill us with "new" things. Jesus doesn't want us to look back, He wants us to look forward. We can't do that when we are holding stuff from our past and refusing to give it up. All we have to do is lay it down at His feet.

Isaiah 43:18,19

God wants to do a new thing. He wants to trade things that we are holding & exchange them for blessings. He wants to work inside of us to empty us of everything the world has formed us to be. He wants to completely empty us & then fill us up with His goodness, mercy, and love.