RELIEVE THE PRESSURE

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

^1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

I do my best to be relevant to my folks at FREEDOM.  Finding things to “talk” about usually isn’t an issue with my group.  Many are hungry for something to help them or for opportunities to experience some difference and hope in their lives.

As a result they are usually quick to offer a topic, a struggle or a question to which we go to the WORD and see what GOD has to say about it because it knows much better than I as to how to address it.

2 Timothy 3:17

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

Last night’s FREEDOM “talk” was no exception.

Several of my folks have been experiencing the “pressure of recovery”.  With the sober life come new expectations.  The new expectations were creating new opportunities for stress and pressure. Many were saying they still felt trapped in their past and hamstrung by some unresolved challenges, thoughts, sins and failures. 

So we went to the WORD and found an amazingly simple solution to relieving the “pressure”.

Let it go.  

Failures, sin, unresolved challenges; let GOD have them.

Psalm 32:5

Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone— my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.

Remember!

The enemy wants nothing more than to continue to point out our failings; to heap on the guilt resulting from missed expectations; to remind us again and again of our past missteps and their resulting consequence.  He is relentless. 

He is unfair.

He wants to continuously refresh our memories of the failures in an effort to cloud the truth and discourage us; to make us believe that our failures are too big to be forgiven and our sins too severe for salvation.  He wants us to trap us in the lie that GOD couldn’t love a sinner like us in spite of the efforts toward sobriety or “doing better”.

He loves to apply the pressure!

But GOD reminds us that HE loves us in spite of our failures that HE embraces us in spite of our warts and mistakes.  In fact Jesus died for us when we were neck deep in our mess.

Romans 5:8

But Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and by this God showed how much he loves us.

Therefore we must listen to the WORD!

We should be quick to OWN those areas where we are continuing to struggle and bring those pressures and challenges to GOD.  His WORD promises that HE IS FAITHFUL to remove them from the slate and remove their power and pressure over us!

1 John 1:9

But if we own up to our sins, God shows that He is faithful and just by forgiving us of our sins and purifying us from the pollution of all the bad things we have done.

More importantly GOD is faithful to not just forgive those failings, to relieve the pressure of their consequence and impact, but HE IS FAITHFUL to FORGET them as well, further stripping the enemy of his ability to use them against us!

Psalm 103:8-14

The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.

He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.

For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are…

So if you too are feeling the pressure of past or even present failures in your life, if the enemy is barraging you with lie after lie, guilt after guilt over your less than perfect record, OWN the failures and then give the failures and their pressure over to GOD.  Let them GO!

GOD understands you.  He knows you are weak.  

He wants to help.

Never forget 

His love never fails.  He wants you to continue on the pathway to FREEDOM!  He wants to purify and heal you!  He wants to take the pressure off!

So let Him!

 

I love you all!

Freedom Church

 

Pastor GDelaney