…many things including we reap what we sow. In other words what you plant is what's going to come up. There is a movie Second Hand Lion where two older men played by Michael Cain and Robert Duvall plant a garden. They have never done that before. This is all new. They bought a wide variety of seed from a traveling salesman. They plant row after row all different vegetables.
The seed sprouts and grows and they notice that all of the plants look the same. Not knowing what these plants are to look like, they continue to care for their first garden. Well, as the story progresses they have row after row of corn. The salesman sold them corn seed. In the following scene the men and their nephew are eating corn, ear after ear. They thought there would be this rich variety of vegetables. They reaped what was sown.
Last Sunday in worship at Crossroads Church we thought together about the need for grace in our own lives, the kind that influences change in our own monologue. In the book Dangerous Calling, Paul David Tripp writes of the power of influence and the most powerful influence in our lives.
“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.” Paul David Tripp
He goes on,
“Whether you realize it or not you are in an unending conversation with yourself, and the things you say to you about you are formative of the way that you live.”
Psychologists say we are wired to focus on the negative. The negative evokes far more response in our brains than positive reinforcement. That’s why 99 people can tell you how great you were and yet one says it wasn’t so good and all you focus on is the one. Then you say to yourself, “See I thought so” because that had been the narrative of insecurity in your monologue. You know the one we tell ourselves about our identity, capabilities and future. More often than not that monologue is not pretty. It is also not true. Yet it becomes self fulfilling. We reap what we sow. We need our minds to change so that we will change our monologue.
How can you be free if you constantly tell yourself of your past? Although you may be able to extend grace to others at times you have never extended grace to yourself. You can’t forgive yourself for your sin. You sin by denying what God has done. It gives you control. It gives you an excuse to deny grace to ones who have wronged you. It also enslaves you to your past. A past that for one who has claimed Christ and his free gift of grace no longer exists. A past that is no longer true and yet you continue to tell yourself with a little help from the evil one it is true. We have got to change THAT monologue.
The truth WAS you WERE that person. The truth IS that grace has brought life into balance in your favor. The Bible speaks volumes about who we have become in Christ, royal, holy a priesthood, children of God, joint heirs with Jesus, more than conquerors. Jesus writes a new story for each of us. We need to plant his story into our minds and hearts each day.
He frees us to win!
Grace does that.
In His
Service and Yours,
The Rev
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