God designed you specifically with a purpose for your life; for you to have a great sense of fulfillment as we go about living. However, there are so many hardships and negativity in this world that deter us away from even beginning to fulfill our purpose that He made us for. Instead of walking out His original design for our lives we begin to live a life of barely surviving and coping with our hardships. Our personalities and who we are begin to develop due to our circumstances; hiding and shielding our hearts and our true selves rather than finding our identity in Jesus.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Sad, lonely, unworthy, useless, angry, bitterness... These feelings are not of God. God promises a bright future and hope if you chose it. He desires for you to feel complete joy and happiness and you don’t have to do a single thing except receive it. He is not a God of force; and He gave us free will to choose which path to walk out. If we chose to live our way He allows this but loves us throughout it all, hoping that we would turn and begin to live the true path that He designed us for.
Psalms 20:4 May he grant you according to your heart’s desire, And fulfill all your purpose.
His promises are for a bright future and hope, fulfillment of all our desires, to have a sense of purpose and completeness with life. Wow. What a great God we have! Through Jesus we can gain a complete sense of purpose for life, because He is life, He designed our lives even before we were born. He chose the specific time in history for each one of use to be created and to fulfill a purpose. Many can’t even comprehend this because they have been molded by the pain they have experienced in the world and become desensitized to anything that has to do with God. Before we can truly gain the abundant blessings that God is just waiting to pour out on us, we must be set free. Free from bondage. Bondage or a stronghold is a sense of slavery, whether it is a mental or physical state of being restrained, tied up, or chained down. There may be a strong hold on your life that is determining the way you live. Is there a gap between the person who you desire to be and what you are currently living out? Is how you are living not bringing you satisfaction? Something is holding you back from experiencing the fullness of life that you desire. Fear of man, passivity, rejection, unforgiveness, unbelief, insecurity, living for yourself. These are all examples of chains that can tie every person down. It begins as thoughts of yourself based on pain and circumstances in your life – I can’t do it, I’m not good enough, beautiful enough etc. You begin to agree with these negative thoughts and ideas. It is engraved into a persons head and they begin making decisions, actions, and base value upon themselves through this. Soon this becomes a lifestyle and bondage. Some may not even recognize they have bondage and are blind to it, they truly are trapped in a repetitious cycle. Most live their lives in a way due to a response of pain that they have endured until hey are completely set free and healed form that pain. These negative thoughts of ourselves are out of alignment with God’s truth of who He created us to be. Our Father wants to set us free from these chains; He wants to break you free of what is holding you back from living the true life of what you were created for!
Romans 12:2
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.
It’s not about just changing our behavior but changing our hearts and our minds, aligning how we feel about ourselves and the world with how God sees it. He gave you an original design for your life and longs and cries out for you to step into it. Begin the journey of becoming the person you were created to be. Allow God to open up your heart so that He can clean it, restore it, mend it, and put it back together. Then may you walk in this new way, His way, with a new heart.
Humans are a creature of habit, when we get in a pattern and routine, it feels comfortable so we don’t want to change. In fact we are such creatures of habit that we even continue in a bad habit, no matter how painful it may be, until the habit becomes more painful than the pain that will come from breaking free of the habit. Only then will we change the habit. Don’t waste time until you get to that breaking point. What if we changed all our habits to good habits so we never had to change our habits again because they were all good! And what if our habits brought joy, life to ourselves and others, and not a deep pit in our stomach, knowing we shouldn’t be doing it and always planning on changing later. We would never have to feel the pain again of trying to change a bad habit! And oh man is it hard to change a habit or view point of yourself when you have walked in it for years. Take a step out of that bondage and start now. Be willing to be healed, desperate for change, desperate for fulfillment, desperate for God. He will heal you.
Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
He sees us as Holy. We were made to be Holy. He calls us to be holy. He calls us to bring a revelation of heaven on earth and to press on to be restored to live out fully how He designed us to be.
Even the apostle Paul admits that he knows he has not reached a point of true understanding and changing behaviors; but he knows the truth that comes with Jesus. He can set you free; with His strength you can change your bad habits to good. And once you conquer that battle and step out of what you know to not be good, you will grow even closer to Him. With that, He can begin to fill you up with immeasurable pleasure, joy, and contentment. It is not easy to step out of bondage, in fact you need to strain ahead and do not look back. Keep your eyes forward. But what pleasure our God brings: contentment with life. That is something not many find, but it is what He has to offer you - True contentment in the depths of your heart, despite any circumstance. What would be a reason to not accept this astounding offer of Love.
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