A little phrase that has been speaking to me over the last few months. "Everything must go." There is so much tied in with this little phrase and you may be wondering what the ig deal is with it...come on now if you are honest you would say seeing that sign at a favorite store would make you happy. Knowing there are deals to be found some people live for that. You would be excited for the sales you could find within those four walls.
Do you know one of the reasons stores do that it is not just just because they want to bless me, but it is because they have new inventory coming in so they have to get rid of everything that is no longer profitable to make room for the new profitable items coming in to take its place.
As wonderful as that is that is not what I want to talk about today, I want to share what I have found to be true about that little phrase. What if we started to treat our lives with that same mentality. That we would look inside ourselves and say everything must go that is no longer profitable so that which is profitable has room to come in and grow.
Think about this for a moment, Peter who left everything he knew and became intimately connected with hope, with faith and love. He walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus, saw Jesus do miracles and had a promise on his life as we find in Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
But just a few chapters down we find Peter the "rock - hit an all time rock bottom...
Matthew 26:69-75
Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Imagine with me for just a moment what Peter must have been feeling as he denied Jesus the hope that anything good that was in his life before was stripped away from him. I place myself in his shoes and can only imagine that my hope, peace, joy, faith and even understanding would have been stripped from me if I had been the one to deny Jesus as Peter did.
Has anyone ever been there - living your life seeing wonderful things happen and then it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under you. You find yourself in a state of depression or confusion because what you thought your life was going to be like completely changed. You begin to doubt yourself and everything you thought was right because of one mistake, one heartache or one disappointment.
As we stand there in this state of low faith, heartache, confusion we begin to question everything. We find ourselves pulling away from people and even pulling away from God.
I want to encourage you today though that if you want the peace in your life again, the joy and contentment to be with you, your faith to be strong again, the EVERYTHING MUST GO!
We must let go of the hurts and heartaches to give room for joy
We must let go of the failures and disappointments to give room for purpose.
We must let go of the anger and bitterness to give room for love.
We must even let go of how we thought our life "should" be.
How can there be room in our lives for Peace, Joy, Love, Contentment, Faith or anything else good unless we let go of the things holding us back from getting there. How can we expect to move forward holding on so tight to the things of the past. How can we expect God to move in our lives if we have not made any room for that to happen?
We all need to take some time and reflect to see what is in us that needs to GO! If we want to move forward and grow the Everything Must Go! I want to let go of the things holding me back so that I can move forward in the things God has for me in my future.
Comments