1730 The Warning Label

BIG Life Devotional | Daily Devotional for Women

Let me clue you in to my process of hearing from God each morning to bring you a new devotional. First, I work on a very tight timeline. I have one hour from the time I sit down to write until I go live. I find this restricted amount of time gets my squirrel chasing mind to depend fully on God and focus on his promptings. A time constraint gets me out of the way so God can do his work.

I only begin writing after I have prayed. My prayer is always the same, “Lord, you know who will be listening today, and you know what they need to hear. Please use me as your vessel to speak to each of them. I am available and I am listening. Please lead me to the right topic, the right scripture, give me the right stories and the right energy. Flow through me. Let your words be my words and my words be your words.”

Then, I pray the same two scriptures:

1. Lord, you have given me a well taught tongue, so I know how to encourage tired people. You wake me up each morning, you open my ears to listen and I am ready to take orders. You are my champion and we are taking this stand together. (Isaiah 50: 4-9)
2. Lord, you have put your words in my mouth and covered me with your hand in order to plant the heavens. You have called and anointed me to remind them they are your girls. (Isaiah 51:16)

And finally, I sit down. Right now, I live on the island of Key Largo, so I always sit at a table on the back deck overlooking the water. And this is where I spend the next hour, as the sun comes up, furiously writing whatever God speaks to me. Over the years I’ve learned getting started is the hardest part. The first sentence takes 10 times the effort as the other sentences. But if I never push through that first sentence, I forfeit the message God has specifically for that day.

Today, God led me to a page in my Bible where I had written in bold blue letters “CUT IT OUT”. That seemed like a heavy statement to begin the week, so I thumbed over to the next page that naturally fell open, and there I had highlighted in bright pink “RUN FROM THEM.”

Wait, God … what are you saying because it seems quite incredible that the first two things I see this morning fit so perfectly together, yet are 300 pages apart in my Bible. And this is where God’s Spirit within me said, “Yes, this is what my girls need to hear today. Let’s go for it!”

So, here I am, going for it with a God who loves you wildly and has something he wants to talk to you and I about today.

Matthew 5: 29-30, “If your eye – even your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand – even your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

This is part of Jesus’ teaching known as “The Sermon on the Mount”. Jesus had climbed onto the side of a mountain as the crowd gathered, and he taught them humility, forgiveness and love. Although these teachings are over 2,000 years old, they are precisely what our world still needs today. In that day, just as today, there was a moral problem causing problems in the lives of God’s people.

And Jesus’ solution to the problem was very clear, CUT IT OUT. (Not a literally cutting off of your hand or gouging out of your eye, but whatever is CAUSING the problem, get rid of it.). Whatever is causing your thoughts to be wrong needs to be absolutely eliminated from your life. No sugar coating necessary, CUT IT OUT.

It would be awful to lose an eye. It would be awful to lose a hand. But that’s better than being caught up in wrong living that eats away at your soul. Now put that into context … it might be hard to cut out social media, it might be hard to eliminate a certain friend group, it might be hard to change the music you listen to or the trash TV you watch, but that’s far easier than continuing to live in the chaos and destruction it invites into your life.

Nothing is without impact.

If you watch it, it gets into your soul through your eyes.

If you listen to it, it gets into your soul through you ears.

If you touch it, it gets into your soul through your hands.

If you eat it or drink it, it gets into your soul through your mouth.

What’s getting into you, my sister, and is it good for you? Is this God’s best for you? If it’s not, then it’s causing harm, creating rot and slowly decaying inside of you, eating away at your soul. God wants you to boldly CUT IT OUT, and do it now.

Reading this part of Jesus’ teaching from the MSG translation, it says, “Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer.”

Yes, the moment you catch yourself settling for anything less than God’s best for you, CUT IT OUT. Do it immediately. Turn it off. Shut it down. Throw it out.

When you don’t cut it out, it’s left to grow inside of you, affecting your thoughts and imagination.

Every single sin first begins as a thought in our imagination. It’s easy to dismiss our imaginations as being wild and free without restraint, but the truth is, our imagination only runs on what it is being fed. You are responsible for the input! Whatever you’re putting in is feeding the thoughts in your imagination. And this is the breeding grounds for every good deed, every positive next step, every right way of thinking … or every wrong thought that creates wrong next steps and acts of sin.

Your imagination is a God-given gift. None of God’s other miraculous creation has this gift … just his masterpiece, you. And that God-given gift of your imagination runs on what it is fed. If it is fed dirt by the eye, then it becomes dirty. If it is fed nonsense through the ears, then it becomes nonsense. If it is fed by a twisted hand, it becomes twisted. Fed trash, it becomes trashy.

The first time we see a new trend in clothing, we think it’s odd. Whew, why would anyone wear that. But, when we see it over and over again, eventually it becomes part of our taste and we’re wearing the trend as well. Yip, we fed that to ourselves, now we want it.

Is there something that isn’t good for you that you’ve been watching or listening to? Is there someone you’ve been talking to or somewhere you’ve been going that is less than God’s best for you? Listen now … do you hear God’s Holy Spirit within you saying, “My girl, cut that out, it’s not good for you.”

Not because God’s limiting or restricting you. No, he has such a big, beautiful life for you to live. A life of freedom and opportunity. But the only way you get to fully live that life is to trust that when God says something isn’t good for you, then it’s really not good for you. You don’t want it. The enemy has twisted things and made us believe we are missing out on something exciting and thrilling by this limitation, but really, God’s limitations are for your ultimate freedom in the very best.

When the thoughts in your imagination are fed by all that is good, right, lovely, pure and praise worthy, then you can dream bigger dreams than ever before and know those dreams are blessed by God. You have his seal of approval on those dreams. Girl, go for it!

That’s the life available to you when you willingly cut out everything that is less than God’s best for you.

And now, 300 pages later in my Bible, the page highlighted in hot pink that says, RUN FROM THEM. 2 Timothy 2:22, “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love and peace.”

What exactly are youthful lusts? I believe they can really be summed up in three things: Make them notice you, make them like you, make them want you.

That young wild heart in us craves fun, sex and fame. Give us money, give us glory, give us something that makes us feel ridiculously good right now. And God’s word says, RUN FROM THESE THINGS.

What stimulates these youthful lusts in us? What we watch – what we listen to – who we’re with – where we go – what we do – how we dress – how we talk – how we act. Yes, those are the things God says don’t just put up with them, don’t try to occasionally avoid them, don’t try to get stronger so you do a little better … no, absolutely RUN FROM THEM.

You don’t belong there. You don’t belong on that couch watching that. You don’t belong on your phone scrolling there. You don’t belong in your car listening to that. You don’t belong on that bar chair talking to him. Those clothes don’t belong on you. Get away from that.

I wish they had a warning label. It should say, “THIS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE!”

My husband and I have a rule. The rule is we don’t put ourselves in a place of temptation. It’s easy to think you are strong enough in your marriage to resist a private conversation becoming flirty … until you’re not. It’s easy to think you would never give in to a moment of weakness when that guy is saying all the right things that no one ever says to you … until you’re weak.

The enemy knows your weakness. He knows what you secretly long for. He knows the taste you love, the feeling you like, and the specific color of your temptation. And girl, you can’t be so naive to believe he’s not coming for you with his best to lure you into some crazy crap to bring complete chaos into your life.

YOU HAVE TO RUN FROM THAT. YOU HAVE TO CUT THAT OUT.

Now. The moment you see it for what it is, the moment God gives you that prompting within that it’s not good for you.

Today, I prayed for you. I prayed that God would use me as his vessel to share with you exactly what he wanted you to hear. And in one hour, this is what he told me. “Tell my girl I love her and I have something so much better for her. Cut that out. Run from that. She’ll know what it is.”

Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela
Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim
Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com