Warning: You Will Be Blessed

Welp, God just knows what to say and when to say it.

When you are met with memories that you never thought would come back up, it makes you feel like you want to isolate yourself. And memories come up at times you never thought would happen. Driving down a certain street, stopping at a specific coffee shop, walking into a room, having a conversation with a friend.

How do you deal with it? (The triggers) Do you completely shutdown? Make excuses for it? Or do you start moving from one thought to another thought and another thought until finally you've spent hours reliving the pain that you swore you surrendered to God. Let's be honest, at that point, I just feel like telling myself I don't deserve any love from anyone then.

Where's this going, you might ask? The enemy tries and tries and (emphasis on tries), but that's all there ever is... just tries. We have a lot more power than we think. Know why? God has been consistently working in all us from the moment we were brought into this world. This world wants to make you believe that the thoughts that you have and things you do must mean that you will never be good enough. Can I just take a second and tell you that you are good enough? You were to die for. When God created us, He saw that it was very good. We may all have temptations and tendencies to do evil, but God uses it for good. We don't have to get caught up in the mess of our thoughts that circle around and around because that is when the enemy is doing his best.

And who is the enemy? Let me just list out what the enemy is not..

• It is not your significant other

• It is not your family

• It is not your friends

• It is not your job

• It is not the person who cut you off yesterday on the road

• It is not yourself

• And most importantly, the enemy is not God

Sorry to disappoint you, but it's true. Think about it for a second, Adam and Eve were living in the garden where the Spirit of the Lord was. They were allowed to have anything to eat in the garden and take care of it, but God said you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for you will surely die. There also existed the Tree of Life, and what does that one do? Well, it gives Life.

So why are we in the place we are today that is met with negative thoughts of brokenness, unworthiness, and hopelessness? It is because of a single thought...that was planted as a seed by the one true enemy of God - Satan. Let's acknowledge that we messed up big time. It's because we acted on the thought that made the image God created us to be distorted and warped.

But I want to emphasize the importance that the image was distorted, but not lost.

We forget this because our mind is warped to believe that we still deserve nothing because of.. you called it - SIN. God saw that and did something about it. That something He did was give us grace through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible is a love letter from God who is bringing His people back to himself, rearranged and made holy. How amazing is that?? It was nothing we did, but what he did for us - all because of love. When man and woman was in the garden, they chose to decide themselves what was good instead of allowing God to bring out the good that was already inside them.

One thing I want to leave you with is this.. God saw you were flawed for what we did and he gave you the opportunity for us to see what God place inside you the right way. He did this by giving us the opportunity to take from the Tree of Life rather than continue to allow us to partake from the false idols that allowed us to decide what was good for us.

So, what tree are you taking from? Be warned, that Life-giving tree, if you take from it, you WILL be blessed. It's impossible not to be.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Jesus) came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.

He gave us the power to live a life that is connected to His glory and holiness - and wow, it is overflowing and abundant. But for that to happen, you have to deny those thoughts. You have to stay on your guard. Because Satan will still try to tell you that knowledge is more important than having faith. That isolation is more important than community. That the words you tell yourself matter more than the words God tells you about yourself. That your past matters more than your future. And that you matter more than God.

Just saying those things out loud do not make any sense. You know it. And I know it. God is rewriting the false narrative the enemy is trying to write in your mind. God is doing this through Jesus Christ, the source of Life. So choose today the narrative God is writing for you and choose life over death. You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.

May the Lord bless you with His abundant grace always,

Brandon