Those tapes...

Remember these??
I've been thinking a lot about tapes...the tapes that play in our minds.  I have several.  They are negative recordings that I listen to...messages that tell me how I should've done better, remind me how I've failed, and try to tell me who I am based on those failures.  Those tapes can play so loudly they are hard to ignore.  They can play messages that are so easy to accept as truth.  Because they bring me back into a place of captivity, destruction, and self-annihilation I know they are not from God.  Now the choice is mine.  They can cause me to put the shackles back on or they can remind me what I've been set free from and I can move into truth.  It is up to us what we do with those recordings...we can keep replaying them, giving them freedom to reap havoc in our lives or we can etch new recordings over them based on truth...God's truth.
Two great verses God showed me this morning...

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self...TO BE MADE NEW IN THE ATTITUDE OF YOUR MIND, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."  Ephesians 4:22-24

How do we put off those tapes, the reminders of our OLD self?  To be made new in the attitude of our mind.  The mind is the battlefront of so many things!   We can focus on the old, the past, those tapes or we can allow God to make us new.  The choice is ours.  Keep replaying those tapes and let satan tell you who you are so he can continue to rob you of the joy you have today, steal from you what God has given you today, and destroy the distance you have put between you and "those" things.  Satan has goals for you and they are clear...he comes to steal, kill and destroy.  PERIOD.  I don't know about the tapes you have in your mind...but the ones that play in mine, do only one thing...steal my joy, kill any progress God has made in my life, and destroy where I am at today...Okay I guess that is 3 things....:)  So what can we do with those tapes?  We can do what Jeremiah did when he was absolutely broken hearted over the choices God's people had made...

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.  I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me.  (wait for it, wait for it...)

           YET THIS I CALL TO MIND AND THEREFORE I HAVE HOPE:
            Because of God's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions NEVER fail.  They are      new     every morning; great is Your faithfulness."  Lamentations 3: 19-23

Pam!  Friends!  When those tapes play, DO NOT give heed to them!  They play only in my mind, so that is where they need to be ignored and etched over.  It is up to me to allow my Creator to etch over the old tapes.  What is He telling me??  Who does He say I am?  What value does He place on me? Time to play those tapes over and over!

  Let's do this to those old recordings!  And not work like crazy with a pencil to suck the tape back in so we can play it again!  :)  Let it go!  Break the cycle of those messages....hear what God has to tell you!  I guarantee you that He does not come to steal, kill and destroy!  He comes with very different intentions.  KNOW and RELY on the love God has for you...  The old tapes are NOT from God, they play in my mind and your mind, so the choice has to be made there, the battlefront is the mind...will I, will you continue to listen to those old tapes or choose to listen to truth from the God who knows you, created you and LOVES you, me extravagantly.... Intentional thinking etches over the old, meditating on truth, setting our minds on...will eventual replace those old recordings if I allow them to.  I know what my choice is...what is yours??