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Speaker 5: This is Joel and Victoria. Thanks for downloading our podcast.
Speaker 5: We enjoy spending this time with you. I hope you'll
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Speaker 5: every week. We appreciate your support. It helps keep the
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Speaker 4: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 5: Well, God bless you and welcome. Thanks so much for
Speaker 5: letting us come into your homes. And if you're ever
Speaker 5: in our area, please stop by. These are the finest
Speaker 5: people in all of Houston, Texas right here at Lakewood.
Speaker 6: We'd love to have you visit. But thanks for tuning
Speaker 6: in and thank you again for coming out today.
Speaker 5: And I'd like to start with something funny, and I
Speaker 5: heard about this college professor. He was going to prove
Speaker 5: to his class that there is no God. He said, God,
Speaker 5: if you're real, then knock me off this platform.
Speaker 6: I'm giving you fifteen minutes to do it. Every minute that.
Speaker 5: Went by, he taunted God, I'm still here, God, I'm
Speaker 5: waiting the last minute.
Speaker 6: Three hundred pound football.
Speaker 5: Player walking down the hallway overheard him. Came running toward
Speaker 5: him full force, put his shoulder down, knocked the professor, sent.
Speaker 6: Him flying off the platform. Professor got up in the day,
Speaker 6: said what in the world do you do that for?
Speaker 5: The football player replied, God said he was busy, so
Speaker 5: he sent me. Old your Bible up, say it like
Speaker 5: you mean it.
Speaker 6: This is my Bible. I am what it says. I am.
Speaker 5: I have what it says I have. I can do
Speaker 5: what it says I can do. Today I will be
Speaker 5: taught the word of God. I boldly confess. My mind
Speaker 5: is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be
Speaker 5: the same. In Jesus' name, God bless you. I want
Speaker 5: to talk to you today about moving forward.
Speaker 6: It's easy to go through life.
Speaker 5: Looking in the rear view mirror, focused on what didn't work.
Speaker 5: Out on who heard us, on the mistakes we made.
Speaker 5: If only I would have finished college, If only I
Speaker 5: would have spent more time with my children, if only
Speaker 5: that company wouldn't have laid me off after twenty years.
Speaker 6: That's just not right.
Speaker 5: But as long as you're living in regrets, focused on
Speaker 5: the negative things of the past, it's going to keep
Speaker 5: you from the bright future God has in store.
Speaker 6: You've got to let go of what didn't work out.
Speaker 5: Let go oh of the hurts and pains, Let go
Speaker 5: of your disappointments, your failures. You can't do anything about
Speaker 5: the past, but you can do something about right now.
Speaker 5: And whether it happened twenty years ago or twenty minutes.
Speaker 6: Ago, let it go and move forward.
Speaker 5: If you keep bringing negative baggage from yesterday into the day,
Speaker 5: it will poison your future. You may have had an
Speaker 5: unfair past, I'm not debating that. What I'm saying is
Speaker 5: you don't have to have an unfair future. You may
Speaker 5: have gotten off to a rough start in life, but
Speaker 5: it's not how you start that matters.
Speaker 6: It's how you finish. Don't let what somebody did or
Speaker 6: didn't do for you be an excuse to live sour.
Speaker 5: Don't let a bad break, a divorce, a betrayal, a
Speaker 5: bad childhood cause you to settle where you are. Move
Speaker 5: forward and God will pay you back. Move forward and
Speaker 5: God will indicate you. Move forward and you'll come into
Speaker 5: a new beginning. Nothing that's happened to you is a
Speaker 5: surprise to God. The loss of that loved one didn't
Speaker 5: catch God off guard. The business that didn't make it,
Speaker 5: the relationship that didn't work out did not stop God's
Speaker 5: plan for your life. Now, the real question is are
Speaker 5: you going to get stuck, fall into self pity, become bitter,
Speaker 5: let the past poison your future, or are you going
Speaker 5: to shake it off and move forward knowing that your
Speaker 5: best days are still up ahead. In your automobile, there's
Speaker 5: a big wind shield in the front and a very
Speaker 5: small rear view mirror. The reason the windshield is so
Speaker 5: large and the rear view mirror is so small is
Speaker 5: because what's happened in your past is not nearly as
Speaker 5: important as what's in your future. Where you're going is
Speaker 5: much more significant than where you've been. But if you
Speaker 5: stay focused on the past, you'll get stuck where you are.
Speaker 5: And this is the reason a lot of people don't
Speaker 5: have no enthusiasm for life. They're dragging around all this
Speaker 5: negative baggage from the past. Somebody offended them last week,
Speaker 5: they've got that stuffed in their resentment bag. Last month
Speaker 5: they lost their temper, said some things they shouldn't have.
Speaker 5: They've got that in their guilt and condemnation bag. Ten
Speaker 5: years ago they lost a loved one. They still don't
Speaker 5: understand it. They've got that hurt and pain in their
Speaker 5: disappointment bag. They carry around their bag of regrets, all
Speaker 5: the things they wish they would have done differently. They've
Speaker 5: got their divorce in a specific bag. Been mad at
Speaker 5: their spouse for years. If they went to take an
Speaker 5: airline flight, they couldn't afford it. They've got twenty seven
Speaker 5: bags they drag around with them everywhere they go. Friends,
Speaker 5: life is too short to live that way. Learn to
Speaker 5: travel light. Every morning when you first get up, forgive
Speaker 5: the people that did you wrong the day before. Forgive
Speaker 5: your spouse for what they said. Forgive your boss for
Speaker 5: being rude. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you've made at
Speaker 5: the start.
Speaker 6: Of the day.
Speaker 5: Let go of the disappointments the setbacks from yesterday. Start
Speaker 5: every morning afresh and anew God did not create you
Speaker 5: to carry around all that baggage.
Speaker 6: Some of you have been holding on to it for years.
Speaker 6: It's not going to change unless you do something about it.
Speaker 5: You got to put your foot down and say that's it.
Speaker 5: I'm not living in regrets anymore. I'm not focusing on
Speaker 5: my disappointments. I'm not dwelling on who hurt me, on
Speaker 5: what didn't work out. I'm letting it go and moving
Speaker 5: forward with my life. See, we should focus on what
Speaker 5: we can change, not what we cannot change.
Speaker 6: What's done is done.
Speaker 5: If somebody offended you, mistreated you, disappointed you, you can't
Speaker 5: undo that. You can either get bitter, pack it in
Speaker 5: a bag and let it weigh you down, or.
Speaker 6: You can forgive them and go on.
Speaker 5: If you lost your temper yesterday, you can either beat
Speaker 5: yourself up, carry around the guilt and condemnation, or you
Speaker 5: can ask for forgiveness, receive God's mercy, and do better today.
Speaker 5: If you didn't get that promotion, you can get sour,
Speaker 5: go around with a chip on your shoulder, or you
Speaker 5: can shake it off knowing that God has something better
Speaker 5: in store. No matter what happens in life, big or small.
Speaker 5: If you will learn to let it go and move forward.
Speaker 6: Then your past.
Speaker 5: Doesn't have to poison your future. I met a lady
Speaker 5: after the service a few years ago who had been
Speaker 5: through a divorce. We prayed several times that God would
Speaker 5: bring somebody new into her life. One day she met
Speaker 5: this man, fine godly man, very successful. She was so
Speaker 5: happy about it, but she made the mistake of dragging
Speaker 5: all of her negative baggage into this new relationship.
Speaker 6: She was constantly talking.
Speaker 5: About what she'd been through and how she was mistreated.
Speaker 6: She had a victim mentality.
Speaker 5: The man told me later she was so focused on
Speaker 5: her past, so caught.
Speaker 6: Up in what she had been through. He couldn't handle it.
Speaker 6: He moved on.
Speaker 5: That's what happens when we hold on to the hurts
Speaker 5: and pains of the.
Speaker 6: Past, it will poison you everywhere you go.
Speaker 5: You cannot drag around the baggage from yesterday and expect
Speaker 5: to have good relationships today. You've got to let it go.
Speaker 5: Quit living life looking in that rear view mirror, start
Speaker 5: looking out the great big windshield. You may have had
Speaker 5: some bad breaks, but that did not stop God's plan.
Speaker 6: For your life.
Speaker 5: He still has something amazing in front of you. When
Speaker 5: one door closes, if you'll stay in faith, God will
Speaker 5: always open up another.
Speaker 6: Door when one dream dies.
Speaker 5: Don't sit around self pity talking about what you've lost.
Speaker 6: Dream another dream.
Speaker 5: Your life is not over because you lost a loved one,
Speaker 5: you went through a divorce, you got laid off. You
Speaker 5: wouldn't be alive unless God had another victory in front
Speaker 5: of you. Now, quit mourning over what you've lost, Let
Speaker 5: go of what didn't work out.
Speaker 6: How do you let it go?
Speaker 5: Quit thinking about it, Quit talking about it. Quit reliving
Speaker 5: all the negative things that have happened to you. When
Speaker 5: those pictures come up on the movie screen of your mind,
Speaker 5: change the channel. You have the remote control. You don't
Speaker 5: have to watch everything that comes up. If you keep
Speaker 5: reliving negative memories, thinking about how unfair it was, how
Speaker 5: could they do that to me? That wound will never heal.
Speaker 5: Every time you think about it, you're reopening it.
Speaker 6: The mind is very powerful.
Speaker 5: When you replay negative experiences, you will feel the same
Speaker 5: emotion as when it first happened. Before long, you'll be sad, angry,
Speaker 5: depressed better. I know people when that picture comes up
Speaker 5: on the movie screen of their mind, the negative memories
Speaker 5: instead of quickly changing the channel. They go, pull up
Speaker 5: a chair, so to speak, get a bag of popcorn,
Speaker 5: watch it for the next fifteen minutes. The scripture says,
Speaker 5: think on things that are pure, things that are wholesome,
Speaker 5: things that are of a good report. If you're going
Speaker 5: to keep moving forward, you've got to be disciplined in
Speaker 5: your thought life. The negative memories will try to replay
Speaker 5: again and again. You've got to guard your mind. Some
Speaker 5: of you would go to a new level if you
Speaker 5: would simply start changing the channel. Quit replaying the disappointments,
Speaker 5: quit reliving the bad breaks.
Speaker 6: Every time you watch that you think.
Speaker 5: About it, you're reopening the wound. It's making it more difficult.
Speaker 5: I walked into a government building one time. There were
Speaker 5: two sets of double doors about fifteen feet apart. They
Speaker 5: were both automatic doors. When you walk through the first
Speaker 5: set of doors, you had to let them totally close
Speaker 5: until the next set of doors would open. As long
Speaker 5: as I stayed that that first set, the second set
Speaker 5: would not open. It's the same principle in life.
Speaker 6: If you're sitting.
Speaker 5: Around nursing your wounds, feeling sorry for yourself, you're not
Speaker 5: going to see anything new. You've got to let those
Speaker 5: doors totally close. Let go of the disappointments, let go
Speaker 5: of the failures. You cannot change the past, but you
Speaker 5: can change the future.
Speaker 6: If you'll move forward, you'll see the new things.
Speaker 5: God wants to do. And this is what the scripture says.
Speaker 5: God will give you beauty for ashes. Here's the key.
Speaker 5: You have to let go of the ashes before you
Speaker 5: can receive the beauty. Ashes represent our broken dreams, our failures,
Speaker 5: our disappointments are hurts. We all have our share of ashes.
Speaker 5: As long as you're holding onto the ashes, thinking about
Speaker 5: the disappointment, mad at somebody, bitter the past, then you
Speaker 5: won't receive the beauty, and exchange has to take place.
Speaker 5: It's an act of faith to say God, I'm forgiving
Speaker 5: this person that hurt me, or I lost my biggest client,
Speaker 5: but I'm not going to have a chip on my shoulder.
Speaker 5: My friend betrayed me, but I'm going to keep a
Speaker 5: good attitude. That's when God can give you the beauty. Well, Joel,
Speaker 5: they hurt me too badly. I can't forgive them. That's
Speaker 5: a heavy price to pay.
Speaker 6: If you won't let go of the old, you can't
Speaker 6: receive the new.
Speaker 5: Well, we prayed for our mother, and she didn't get
Speaker 5: healed like your mother. We don't understand it. I don't
Speaker 5: claim to understand it all. I'm simply asking you to
Speaker 5: let go of the ashes, let go of the disappointment,
Speaker 5: let go of the blame. Take those ashes, your broken dreams,
Speaker 5: you hurt, your failures, even your questions.
Speaker 6: Put them into God's hands and say God, it wasn't fair.
Speaker 6: They hurt me.
Speaker 5: My dream didn't work out, but I refuse to live
Speaker 5: life looking in the rear view mirror. You promised me
Speaker 5: beauty for ashes. So right now I'm releasing the bitterness.
Speaker 5: I'm forgiving the person that hurt me. I'm letting go
Speaker 5: of the disappointments. I know a man that lost his
Speaker 5: wife over ten years ago. She was killed in an
Speaker 5: automobile accident. It's a very tragic situation. Now, of course,
Speaker 5: there's a normal period for grieving. That's a part of
Speaker 5: the healing process. That's the way God made us. But
Speaker 5: some ten years later, this man was still grieving. He
Speaker 5: let a season of mourning turn into a lifetime of mourning.
Speaker 6: He ended up a very bitter, angry man. What happened.
Speaker 5: He's holding on to the ashes God wants to give
Speaker 5: him beauty, but because he won't let go of the old,
Speaker 5: he can't receive the new. The enemy would love for
Speaker 5: you to spend your whole life sitting in the ashes,
Speaker 5: Bitter over a relationship that didn't work out, angry over
Speaker 5: a job you didn't get, feeling sorry for yourself because
Speaker 5: of a loved.
Speaker 6: One that died.
Speaker 5: No turn loose of those ashes. If you went through
Speaker 5: a divorce, let it go. God has somebody better in
Speaker 5: your future. If you weren't treated right growing up, let
Speaker 5: it go and God will make it up to you.
Speaker 5: If you lost a loved one, they're up in heaven
Speaker 5: right now celebrating.
Speaker 6: You know what they would want me to tell you.
Speaker 6: Move forward.
Speaker 5: Quit mourning over something that's over and done. Quit mourning
Speaker 5: over what you cannot change. If God wanted them to
Speaker 5: still be here, they would still be here. If God
Speaker 5: wanted you to have that position that you didn't get,
Speaker 5: you would have it. Shake off the self pity, shake
Speaker 5: off the disappointment. The apostle Paul put it this way,
Speaker 5: forgetting what lies behind, I strain toward what lies ahead.
Speaker 5: That word strain indicates it's going to take effort.
Speaker 6: You go through a bad break.
Speaker 5: A laws easy thing to do is sit around talk
Speaker 5: about how bad life's treating you.
Speaker 6: But if you're going to keep moving forward, you've got
Speaker 6: to have a strong will.
Speaker 5: You've got to rise up like Paul and say that's it.
Speaker 5: I am not holding onto these ashes. I know what's
Speaker 5: in my future is greater than what's in my past,
Speaker 5: So I am pressing forward in life. This is what
Speaker 5: the prophet Samuel had to do. Samuel had invested a
Speaker 5: lot of time and energy into his relationship with Saul.
Speaker 5: Back when Saul was a young man, Samuel chose him
Speaker 5: at the Lord's command to be the next king of Israel.
Speaker 5: Samuel took Saul under his wing.
Speaker 6: He did his best to.
Speaker 5: Make sure that Saul would succeed, but unfortunately Saul wouldn't
Speaker 5: walk in obedience and God rejected him as king. Well,
Speaker 5: you can imagine how Samuel must have felt. He had
Speaker 5: put all this time and effort and energy into Saul,
Speaker 5: and now it looks like it was all a big
Speaker 5: wayte of time. I'm sure Samuel was heartbroken sitting around
Speaker 5: feeling sorry for himself, thinking about what didn't work out.
Speaker 6: In first Samuel.
Speaker 5: Sixteen, God said Samuel, how long are you going to
Speaker 5: mourn over Saul? God is asking us the same thing.
Speaker 5: How long are you going to mourn over what you've lost?
Speaker 5: How long are you going to be discouraged over a
Speaker 5: relationship that didn't work out, over a job you didn't get,
Speaker 5: over somebody that hurts you. There is a problem with
Speaker 5: excessive mourning. It stops God from releasing the new things
Speaker 5: he has for you. God told Samuel, fill your horn
Speaker 5: with oil and.
Speaker 6: Be on your way.
Speaker 5: I am sending you to the house of Jesse. I've
Speaker 5: chosen one of his sons to be the next king.
Speaker 5: God was saying, Samuel, if you'll quit mourning and instead
Speaker 5: get up and start moving forward, I'll give you another king,
Speaker 5: Saul his first choice. But just because Saul wouldn't walk
Speaker 5: in obedience, God didn't say I'm sorry, Samuel, Saul blew it.
Speaker 5: That ruins everything. No, God always has another plan. And
Speaker 5: if you'll quit dwelling on the disappointment, quit feeling sorry
Speaker 5: for yourself, and instead do what the scripture says, fill
Speaker 5: your horn with oil. That simply means put on a
Speaker 5: new attitude, put the smile back on your face, get
Speaker 5: the spring back in your step, get your hopes up,
Speaker 5: start expecting God's goodness. That's when you'll see the new
Speaker 5: things God has in store now. Samuel could have said, God,
Speaker 5: I can't do it. I'm too heartbroken. They hurt me
Speaker 5: too bad. I spent too much time with Saul. If
Speaker 5: he would have done that, he would have missed out
Speaker 5: on choosing David, one of the greatest kings that's ever lived.
Speaker 6: Just like with.
Speaker 5: Samuel, what you may think right now is a big disappointment,
Speaker 5: a big stumbling block.
Speaker 6: God is going to turn it into a step stone.
Speaker 5: To take you into the greatest days of your life.
Speaker 5: I have a friend that was married for many, many years.
Speaker 5: One day he came home and his wife had left
Speaker 5: a note on the kitchen table saying that she had
Speaker 5: fallen in love with somebody else and was moving away.
Speaker 5: Of course, he was very devastated. When I saw him,
Speaker 5: he looked twenty years.
Speaker 6: Older than he really was.
Speaker 5: He said, I don't understand it. I love this lady.
Speaker 5: I'll never find another person like her. He thought he
Speaker 5: had seen his best days, and he grieved that loss.
Speaker 5: He went through a season of mourning, but he didn't
Speaker 5: let it turn into a lifetime of morning didn't happen overnight,
Speaker 5: but eventually he got his passion back.
Speaker 6: He put on a new attitude. He made the decision
Speaker 6: he wasn't going to live.
Speaker 5: Life looking in the rear view mirror, kept moving forward.
Speaker 5: About three years later he met this beautiful young lady.
Speaker 5: They ended up falling in love getting married. Old Joel,
Speaker 5: I have never been this happy in all of my life.
Speaker 5: I never knew what true love really was. And this
Speaker 5: is the way God is. If you'll let go of
Speaker 5: the ashes, not get bitter, God will do something greater
Speaker 5: than you've ever imagined. When my father was alive, I
Speaker 5: used to tell Victoria, I wonder what's gonna happen to
Speaker 5: me and what's gonna happen around here when my father
Speaker 5: goes to be with the Lord. My father and I
Speaker 5: we had traveled the world together for seventeen years. I
Speaker 5: worked with him day in and day out here at
Speaker 5: the ministry. He'd come over to our house many nights,
Speaker 5: we'd have dinner, go watch the Astros play baseball.
Speaker 6: Much of my world was built around my father.
Speaker 5: In the back of my mind, I thought, when my
Speaker 5: dad dies, it will never.
Speaker 6: Be as good as it is right now.
Speaker 5: When my dad went to be with the Lord nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety ninety suddenly had a heart attack. I mourned the
Speaker 5: loss of my father, but I didn't get better, didn't
Speaker 5: have a chip on my show.
Speaker 6: I didn't feel cheated.
Speaker 5: I knew the number of my father's days God had fulfilled.
Speaker 6: I knew it was a part of God's plan.
Speaker 5: And I say this very respectfully because I still love
Speaker 5: and miss my father. But what I thought would be
Speaker 5: my darkest hour turned out to be my brightest hour.
Speaker 5: I thought I could never be as happy and fulfilled
Speaker 5: as when my dad was here. But like with Samuel,
Speaker 5: God had another plan. God had something better for the
Speaker 5: new season.
Speaker 6: Of my life.
Speaker 5: When you go through a loss of disappointment, it's easy
Speaker 5: to think it'll never be like it used to be.
Speaker 5: If you'll stay in faith and keep moving forward, you're right.
Speaker 5: It won't be what it used to be. It will
Speaker 5: be better.
Speaker 6: Than it used to be. That's the way our God is.
Speaker 6: That's beauty for ashes.
Speaker 5: Now my question, are you still mourning over something that
Speaker 5: you should be over. If you'll fill your horn with oil,
Speaker 5: put on the new attitude, start moving forward, you will
Speaker 5: see the better things that God has in store and
Speaker 5: in life, we all have to deal with some kind
Speaker 5: of loss, loss of a loved one, loss of a job,
Speaker 5: loss of a dream, loss of a relationship, and it's
Speaker 5: tempting to feel like something was taken away from us,
Speaker 5: something was stolen.
Speaker 6: You can have one of two attitudes.
Speaker 5: You can say, God, it's not fair, I don't understand it.
Speaker 6: How could you let that happen to me.
Speaker 5: You can get angry, bitter, past blame, but a much
Speaker 5: better approach is to take that loss and sow it
Speaker 5: as a seed. Say God, i don't know why this
Speaker 5: was taken away, but I'm not going to let anyone
Speaker 5: steal from me. I'm sowing this as a seed, trusting
Speaker 5: you to.
Speaker 6: Bring me a harvest. In other words, you didn't get
Speaker 6: a promotion that you deserved.
Speaker 5: Don't get bitter, have the attitude nobody stole this promotion
Speaker 5: from me. God, I'm sowing it as a seed, believing
Speaker 5: that you'll me an even better position.
Speaker 6: A relationship didn't work out.
Speaker 5: God, I'm not going to live my life sour thinking
Speaker 5: that I've wasted months or even years of my life.
Speaker 5: I'm sowing this as a seed, knowing that you will
Speaker 5: bring the right person into my life. See, you can't
Speaker 5: have a victim mentality. Oh man, I've been robbed. My
Speaker 5: loved one was taken away. No turn it around, give
Speaker 5: it to God, Sow it as a seed, and you'll
Speaker 5: be amazed at what kind of harvest God will bring you.
Speaker 5: I saw a story on the news several years ago.
Speaker 6: About this young mountain climber.
Speaker 5: He was in a remote section of Utah, hiking through
Speaker 5: the canyon all alone, when suddenly this eight hundred pound
Speaker 5: boulder shifted and his right arm became stuck. For five days,
Speaker 5: he tried everything he could to free himself.
Speaker 6: Had a small pocket knife. Hour after hour he chipped
Speaker 6: away at that boulder to no avail.
Speaker 5: When that didn't work, he tried to use some of
Speaker 5: him climbing equipment to somehow shift the rock again. It
Speaker 5: wouldn't even budge. On the third day, he ran out
Speaker 5: of food and water. By this time, his arm was
Speaker 5: no longer alive. He had no feeling in it, had
Speaker 5: no blood going to it. For days, it was cold, hard, stiff.
Speaker 5: It looked like he was going to die with it.
Speaker 5: Didn't seem like there was any way out. But on
Speaker 5: the fifth day he made a decision to do the unthinkable.
Speaker 6: He knew he had to cut off his arm if
Speaker 6: he was going to be able to live. He put
Speaker 6: a tourniquet on up here.
Speaker 5: Somehow, some way, he amputated his own arm. He then
Speaker 5: walked for two miles. Somebody ran into him. Miraculously, his
Speaker 5: life was saved. And in a sense, we all come
Speaker 5: to places like this in life, where something is over
Speaker 5: and done.
Speaker 6: There's nothing more we can do about it.
Speaker 5: We may not understand it, it may not have been fair,
Speaker 5: but none of that changes the fact that it's no
Speaker 5: longer alive. We can either hold on to it and
Speaker 5: let it drag us down and defeat us with it, or,
Speaker 5: like this young man, as difficult as it may be,
Speaker 5: we can choose to break free move forward.
Speaker 6: So we can experience a new beginning.
Speaker 5: If something is dead in your life, don't die with it.
Speaker 6: If something is over and done, don't hold on to it,
Speaker 6: let it go. Say God, they hurt me, it wasn't right.
Speaker 6: But I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm not
Speaker 6: going to relive that memory. I'm gonna cut it off
Speaker 6: and move forward.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you have to take bold measures to keep making progress.
Speaker 6: If a dream died, don't die with it.
Speaker 5: Cut off the broken dream, cut off the relationship that
Speaker 5: didn't work out, cut off the self pity, the unforgiveness,
Speaker 5: the negative attitude. Where you're unwilling to walk away is
Speaker 5: where you're going to become stuck. In the scripture, Job
Speaker 5: went through a nine month period where everything that could
Speaker 5: go wrong did.
Speaker 6: He lost his health, his business, his.
Speaker 5: Family, and at one point, it says, he sat down
Speaker 5: among the ashes. He was so overwhelmed, so distraught. He thought,
Speaker 5: this is it. I'll never be happy again. When you
Speaker 5: go through a loss, a disappointment, there's nothing the enemy
Speaker 5: would love to see you do any more than to
Speaker 5: sit down among the ashes, get bitter, hold on to
Speaker 5: something that's dead, lose your enthusiasm for life. That's what
Speaker 5: Job did for a period of time. He sat down.
Speaker 5: But here's the whole catch. Job didn't stay down. He
Speaker 5: got his fireback, got his passion back. He rose up
Speaker 5: out of those ashes. He said, this may be difficult,
Speaker 5: but I know my Redeemer lives. I know my God
Speaker 5: is still on the throne.
Speaker 6: I know I.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't be alive unless there was something greater in my future.
Speaker 5: The scripture says Job came out with twice what he
Speaker 5: had before. Some of you today life hasn't turned out
Speaker 5: the way you had hoped, gone through some unfair situations. Now,
Speaker 5: like Job, you're sitting in the ashes, holding on to
Speaker 5: something that didn't work out, bitter discouraged.
Speaker 6: God is saying, if.
Speaker 5: You'll let go of the ashes, if you'll put on
Speaker 5: a new attitude, I'll do for you what I did
Speaker 5: for Job. I'll not only bring you out, but I'll
Speaker 5: bring you out with twice what you had before. Isaiah said,
Speaker 5: because you've got a double dose of trouble, your inheritance
Speaker 5: in the land will be double and your joy will
Speaker 5: go on forever. Friends, your future starts today. Don't you
Speaker 5: dare go through life looking in that rear view mirror,
Speaker 5: look out the great big windshield in front of you.
Speaker 5: Your life is filled with possibility. There are incredible opportunities
Speaker 5: in of you. You may have had some bad breaks,
Speaker 5: but always remember God has.
Speaker 6: Promised beauty for those ashes. Now do your part. Let
Speaker 6: go of the ashes. Quit reliving negative memories.
Speaker 5: Don't let us season of mourning turn into a lifetime
Speaker 5: of morning. Be bold to cut off whatever didn't work out,
Speaker 5: whether it was thirty minutes ago, thirty years ago.
Speaker 6: Let it go and move forward.
Speaker 5: If you'll do this, you will feel a heaviness lift
Speaker 5: off of you.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: I believe and declare the rest of your life will
Speaker 5: be the best of your life. God will take what's
Speaker 5: meant for harm and use it to your advantage. You
Speaker 5: will overcome every obstacle, defeat every enemy, and become everything
Speaker 5: God's created you to be.
Speaker 6: In Jesus' name, if you receive it, can you say
Speaker 6: him in today?
Speaker 5: We never like to close our broadcast without giving you
Speaker 5: an opportunity to make Jesus the lord of your life.
Speaker 6: Would you pray with me?
Speaker 5: Just say, Lord, Jesus, I repent of my sins, Come
Speaker 5: into my heart.
Speaker 6: I make you my Lord and savior.
Speaker 5: Friends, if you prayed that simple prayer, we believe you
Speaker 5: got born again. Get in a good Bible based church.
Speaker 5: Keep God first place. He's going to take your places
Speaker 5: that you've never dreamed of.
Speaker 7: Thank you for listening to the joel Ousteine podcast. Help
Speaker 7: us continue to share the message of hope with those
Speaker 7: all over the world. Visit joeloustein dot com slash give
Speaker 7: Hope to give a gift today.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much for listening to Today's message, I hope
Speaker 5: you'll subscribe so you can receive the latest podcast to
Speaker 5: keep you.
Speaker 6: Inspired all through the week. We're praying for you. I
Speaker 6: know God's best is still ahead. We'll see you next time.
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