We all fall into “the pit” sometimes. The good news is you don’t have to stay there and you can skip the guilt trip!
now there’s a little place that the
devil wants us to live in called the pit
anybody know about the pit the pit of
depression
the pit of discouragement
the pit of fear
anger
whatever it might be
well what is a pit it’s a sunken place
a low place
a dark and an unpleasant
place i believe self-pity is a pit
there’s nothing worse than spending a
whole day sitting around in a half dark
room feeling sorry for yourself it’s
terrible
it’s certainly not a place that god
wants us to be in and it’s certainly not
a place that jesus died for us
to live in
joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit
and he ended up in the palace so he must
have found some way to get out of that
pit
and you may be in a place like that
right now maybe some of you watching by
television you think you accidentally
turned this program on just flipping
through the channels and
you’re sitting in a pit of depression or
fear or
anger and it’s no accident that you’ve
joined us god is going to show you
through his word how you can get out of
that pit
now we pray for god to get us out of
places we don’t want to be in but to be
honest it’s not all about prayer
i found out many times when we pray and
ask god to do something for us he shows
us what we need to do
i’m going to say that again just to make
sure you got it
a lot of times when we ask god to do
something for us
instead of just magically doing it for
us
he shows us what we need to do
to change that thing
in our life now
there’s a difference in works of the
flesh and the works of god
the bible clearly and over and over
tells us not to get into works of the
flesh and works of the flesh is our
energy our idea
of how we can make something happen and
we’ve left god out of it
works of the flesh we want to avoid
but the works of god we want to do and
the works of god are doing what god has
shown you to do
doing what god has directed you to do
rather he’s directed you from his word
or rather he’s given you what
we would term a rhema word which is
not necessarily a written word but it’s
a word god speaks to your heart that
agrees
with the spirit of the rest
of the bible
there are countless people that pray for
healing day in
and day out
probably as much as anything we get
prayer requests
for god to heal people
and god is our healer jesus is our
healer there’s no doubt about that
but we need to also make sure that we’re
not abusing our own bodies at the same
time that we’re asking god to do
miracles
in our life
you might pray for a healing and god
might show you that you need more sleep
i i’ll go slow it’s all right
you might pray for a healing and god may
be simultaneously telling you that you
desperately need to get some of the
stress out of your life
that you need to slow down
[Applause]
that you need to not spend every day
multitasking trying to do five and six
things at one time
you may need healing in your life and
maybe god wants to deal with the anger
that you’ve carried around
for years and years and years
or maybe you feel bad and what you
really need is exercise
now don’t worry i’m not going to camp on
top of this particular point but i just
want to make the point
that we need to grow up enough to
realize that
we can’t just keep asking god to do
everything for us
we can’t ask him to deliver us from the
problem that we keep feeding
is that a good way to say it let’s let’s
stop asking god to deliver us from a
problem that we keep feeding day in
and day out
so it’s very important that
we realize that sometimes
if you’re in a pit
of some kind
how many of you know what i’m talking
about when i say a pit it’s kind of a
broad term but i you know
i mean even the final resting place of
hell is called a pit so
we certainly don’t want to end up there
but i don’t want to
live in
one all the way up until my time here on
earth is up
and sometimes the simple answer
on how to get out of the pit is just to
climb out
get up
and climb out now
do your thoughts ever drop into the pit
i was enjoying my morning walk recently
which i do
pretty much every day unless i’m
traveling
a very negative
judgmental and critical thought entered
my mind about somebody that i know that
has some annoying habits
now i don’t know if that ever happens to
you
but it’s interesting to me how you can
just be going about minding your own
business
and all of a sudden your head is full of
this junky stuff
that
you don’t even really understand why
you’re thinking about it
but there it is
well
if we understand the bible we know that
the mind is the battlefield it’s the
place where satan tries to
take us captive
if he can
take our thoughts captive then he can
usually end up
ruling
in our lives because as a man thinks
so is he
it’s impossible to think bad thoughts
about somebody all day and then get
around them and treat them right it just
won’t happen
so to walk in love we have to think
loving thoughts to have a positive life
we have to think positive thoughts so
this battle of the mind
this
girding up the loins of our mind as
peter said
this is something that we have to be
diligent about doing on a regular basis
and
you’ll find sometimes that your thoughts
are just going in the
totally wrong direction
well
second corinthians 10 gives us a
responsibility
cast those thoughts down
casting down
imaginations and reasonings and theories
and every proud and lofty thing that
exalts itself against the knowledge of
god and take every thought captive under
the obedience of jesus christ well this
is not something that god says he’ll do
for us
this is something he says that we have
to do what he does for us is he causes
us to recognize that our thoughts are
going in the wrong direction
the holy spirit is in our life
[Applause]
to help us recognize
that we’re kind of getting off the path
we need to stay on the narrow path but
sometimes we drift off on
to the broad path
you can skip the guilt trip
you don’t have to feel condemned you
just simply climb out of the pit if you
find yourself in it
you get back on the narrow path if you
find that you’ve drifted over
to the broad path and i want to say
again you can skip the guilt trip
you can skip the guilt trip
because
just because you’re tempted to do the
wrong thing that doesn’t mean that you
sin temptation is not sin
the real problem comes in when we
recognize that we’re doing wrong and we
don’t care and we just keep doing it
anyway
but if you’re working with the holy
spirit to do the right thing
a smart person an intelligent christian
will pray for the conviction of the holy
spirit
in their life
on a daily basis all day long not the
condemnation of the devil but the
conviction of the holy spirit
one is beautiful
the other one is absolutely terrible
there’s nothing better than the holy
spirit saying
he’s not loud
doesn’t scream it’s just like
zip it
okay
so i’m having this walk and
i recognized
that i was having these thoughts that
weren’t good
well i kept walking and
another one followed right behind the
first one and
finally about seven in a row and i
thought
i have allowed my thoughts to fall into
the pit
i told myself where thoughts were wrong
and i climbed out of the pit
in other words i changed my mind
i started thinking about something else
a few minutes later i started to climb
right back into the pit
but this time i only descended about
halfway down before i climbed out
this continued a few more times
and finally i didn’t fall into the pit
any longer
now
you got to realize that
just because you catch yourself going in
the wrong direction once doesn’t mean
the enemy’s going to leave you alone the
rest of the day
sometimes you’ve got to listen what i’m
going to say fight the good fight of
faith
amen sometimes you’ve got to cast down
and it comes back and you cast down and
it comes back come on some of you that
are fishermen i mean you’ll cast out you
don’t catch anything you reel it back in
you cast out you keep it up until you
catch what you want
you’ll sit there with
that all day long okay
my husband plays a lot of golf and i he
he hits a lot of bad balls but that
doesn’t keep him from going back out and
hitting again and again and again and
again
so there’s some things that we know how
to do again and again and again but then
there’s other things that we give up on
too easily
and i could have called this message
today do it again but
i didn’t however that is what we’re
going to talk about
there’s one person that the devil cannot
defeat
and that’s somebody who refuses to give
up
i said that’s somebody who refuses
to give up
and no matter how many times
[Music]
[Applause]
he dumps a bad thought in your mind you
dump it out and go back in the wrong
direction
every time you find yourself in a pit
skip the guilt trip
climb out i got to keep saying skip the
guilt trip because if you make a mistake
one time
and you realize it
and now you start feeling guilty it’s
going to weaken you and help you fall
right back into the same trap again
guilt does nothing good for us at all
repent go on about your business paul
said one thing i do one thing i do
the great apostle paul one thing i do it
is my one
aspiration letting go of the things that
are behind
and pressing
toward the things that are ahead and
that is your privilege today whether
you’re in this building or watching by
tv no matter how many mistakes you’ve
made no matter what kind of pit you find
yourself in right now
the answer from god is very simple
talk to god about it repent
climb back out of the pit
make a good decision that’s going to
override the bad decision skip the guilt
trip and go on if you fall in again do
it again if you fall in again do it
again if you fall in again do it again
and no matter how many times it takes
you will wear the devil out if you don’t
give up
[Applause]
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