Yesterday ended is a podcast dedicated to the healing words of Jesus Christ and his story of redemption. Each podcast contains an original poem so that I can portray a confession of our faith of scripture in unique and succinct ways. Come with me on a journey to become a new creation and to declare old things dead and our life anew in Christ. What we meditate on will determine the direction and fruit of our lives. Let's live today speaking the words of life.
The victory we have in Christ can be felt in our everyday life. We can overcome depression. We can overcome fear. We can be confident. We can be free from worry. We can be free from anxiety. We can have emotional healing. We can have hope. We can be set free from our past. The Bible declares the goodness of God. The Bible is more than Christian psychology it is truth. The truth of God brings mental health, spiritual health and physical health. We can walk in peace. We can overcome the traumas of life.
What makes you shout with joy? Do you rejoice in iniquity or in the truth? Do you rejoice in forgiveness or revenge? As a sports fan rejoices in their team’s victory, who is your team? Are you rejoicing in the world or in the word? Welcome to yesterday ended, healing the traumas of life. Your mindset will determine the quality of your life. On what is your mind set? Joy should be the natural state of a Christian. But do we rejoice in what is good? I’m your host Dennis Dobbin and I’m here to teach you a godly way to celebrate. Give a listen.
What makes you shout with joy? Do you rejoice in iniquity or in the truth? Do you rejoice in forgiveness or revenge? As a sports fan rejoices in their team's victory, who is your team? Are you rejoicing in the world or in the word? Welcome to yesterday ended Healing the Traumas of Life. Your mindset will determine the quality of your life. On what is your mind set? Joy should be the natural state of a Christian, but do we rejoice in what is good? I'm your host Dennis Dobbin, and I'm here to teach you a godly way to celebrate. Give a listen. Many years ago I was walking home one evening from having gone out to the movies. There had been a light rain while I was in the theater, and the ground and sidewalk was now damp. As I walked down the sidewalk I noticed a dollar bill in front of me. I picked it up with a smile. As I walked a little bit further, I saw another dollar bill. I picked it up with another smile. I walked a bit further and in a driveway I saw another dollar bill and picked it up. I smiled again. But when I picked that one up I noticed there were other bills underneath it. I peeled back the top one dollar bill to see a ten dollar bill. I really smiled at that point. I peeled the ten dollar bill back to look into the face of Benjamin Franklin. For those of you who are not familiar with American currency, Benjamin Franklin is on the one hundred dollar bill. My smile turned into a shout of rejoicing. As I took a few more steps, the Lord spoke to me and reminded me of Psalm one hundred nineteen sixty two. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. What was I celebrating? What made me rejoice? I found riches, great spoil. I was so happy for me. But I didn't stop to think about the person who lost it. It was all about me. Many years before that, before I had moved to California, I was going to a university in Topeka, Kansas. I went into the men's room to use the restroom and when I stepped into the stall I noticed some folded money on the back of the toilet seat. I picked it up and there were eleven ten dollar bills. Oh man could I use that money. But as I walked out of the restroom at that point I considered who lost it. It's easier when you're walking down the street in the middle of a block late one night when it's raining to think finders keepers, losers weepers. The ability to find the owner of that money was not impossible but highly unlikely, so I kept it. But to find the owner of the money lost in the student union at the university could be much easier. So I went to the information desk and told them I found a sum of money. I gave them my phone number. If anyone reported losing some money, if they could tell me the amount and the denomination of the bills, I would return it. A few hours later I got a call from another student who identified the cash. I returned it. Not as happy as in my first example of finding cash. What is my point in all of this? What do you celebrate? I smiled all the while thinking of my luck. I found a prize someone lost, but in my joy no thought arose of the pain of the loser. No celebration in heaven was heard. Once upon a day I thought of my old sin, and again and again I thought about it. I celebrated how it made me feel, and with that I fell once again into the old. No celebrations in heaven was heard. But today I repent and change my mind. I no longer celebrate the ways of yesterday, the truth of God in my heart I now uphold. A new creation in Christ my old has gone away. There is joy in heaven over one that repents. In my teenage years I smoked marijuana. I can remember a number of times of stumbling over some hidden stash in a drawer or such a place, where I had hidden a small amount of marijuana. I rejoiced when I found it. Nowadays, if I were to be cleaning my house and find something of that sort, I would not rejoice in it. In my early twenties I worked for a very small remodeling company that was refurbishing a nineteen forties house. It was quite an undertaking. One day my boss told me to go upstairs to one of the bedrooms and repair a hole at the far end of a walk in closet. On the other side of that wall was a bathtub. The pipes had leaked, damaging the wall. As I walked into the eight foot deep walk in closet, I looked down at the hole in the wall. And then I saw them, a pile of pornographic magazines. My focus intensified as I began to walk forward. Unfortunately, my focus was so extreme that I did not notice the clothes pole that ran perpendicular to the closet about halfway. I was walking so swiftly with my focus on the magazines that when I hit the pole with my forehead it knocked me to the floor. My celebration turned to pain. What is the focus of our lives? What do we celebrate? When I did my episode on the lifestyle of repentance, that study and consideration showed me the importance of a constant, vigilant mindset to celebrate the truth. A number of times in the past when I was trying to get rid of a bad habit AK sin, I sometimes thought of the old habit more than the new habit. Subsequently, I would fall back into the old habit. As a new creation, we need to focus on being new. We need to celebrate walking in newness of life. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Our old sin nature was crucified with Christ. It died with Christ and was buried with Christ. We need to keep ourselves from resurrecting that sin nature. As I have been honing my skills to renew my mind throughout my life, I grew to understand that I needed to recognize I'm dead to sin. I needed to recognize that the body of sin had been destroyed and I shouldn't be talking to it. Now I can be alive to God through Jesus Christ my Lord. I needed to get my eyes off my old ways and focus on walking not in the flesh, but in the spirit. By doing this I walk free from the pain and failure of the past. Perfect peace is obtainable to those who stay their mind on God. We need to focus on the promises of God, not the problems of our former sinful nature. We need to identify with what Christ has done, not with who we used to be. Unfortunately, some programs of changing bad habits have the participants identify with their old problem. I know some of these programs have been great for many people. The steps they go through helped them identify their problem and change their ways. But the issue of our identity and how we describe ourselves is crucial. I am not a sinner saved by grace. I was a sinner saved by grace. I am now a saint. I've heard Bible teachers say it and I've heard the phrase I'm a sinner saved by grace in several Christian songs, but that's not the truth. Another twist of the truth is I'm covered by the blood of Jesus. The truth is I'm cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Covering was what happened for the children of Israel when they gave an animal sacrifice, and it was temporary. The sacrifice of Jesus has fully and completely cleansed us from all unrighteousness. He paid the price for our salvation. We can be free in the victory of Jesus when we discipline our minds to stay focused on the truth he taught. John chapter eight verses thirty through thirty two. As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The first key to freedom is to believe on Jesus. Our faith must be centered on his life and his victory in giving his life for our salvation. We must invite Jesus into our hearts as our Savior and do the work in our hearts to surrender to him as our Lord. The second key to freedom is to continue in Christ's Word. The word translated continue in verse 31, in other places is translated to abide or dwell. We are to literally live in his word, at which point we will be considered a disciple, a disciplined one, a student of Jesus. By faith in Christ and continuing in his word, we will experience the truth, and the truth will make us free. Philippians chapter 3, verse 3. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Here is a statement of identity. Paul was identifying as an Israelite by saying, We are the circumcision. But he goes on to give a new definition. They were those who worshiped God in the spirit. They did not worship God through the sacrifices of the temple anymore. Secondly, they rejoiced in Christ Jesus, not in Moses. And thirdly, they had no confidence in the flesh. Their genealogy no longer mattered. Who their father or grandfather was was of no relevance. How do we identify ourselves? What do we rejoice in? In what is our confidence? We can identify ourselves by the nation we live in. We can identify ourselves by our ethnicity. We can identify ourselves by our economic status. We can identify ourselves by our career or employment. Or we could identify ourselves as to be one with Christ Jesus. We can identify ourselves as beloved children of God in whom He is well pleased. A very common occurrence on the freeways of Southern California is someone in an expensive sports car goes zooming through traffic, cutting people off and acting as if they owned the road. It is very easy to desire, at the very least, to see that person getting a ticket down the road if not seeing them in a wreck in their pretty car. Of course, I've never thought of such a thing. No, perished the thought. I have thought, where are the police when you need them? There are things that people have done to us that make us angry. We want revenge. We want to celebrate in their demise. But wouldn't it be more proper to pray for them? Wouldn't it be better for us to desire their deliverance from pride or whatever is causing them to act improperly? How cautious are we to consider the little bits of darkness that creep into our hearts? Think about it today. What do you celebrate? First Corinthians thirteen verse six rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. This is the standard of the love of God, to rejoice not in iniquity, but in the truth. We must be vigilant to guard our hearts concerning what we rejoice or celebrate in. Proverbs twenty-four verses seventeen and eighteen. Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. The question again is, what does love rejoice in? Are we allowing love to be the center of our hearts? Are we living the compassion of Christ foremost? As I have prepared this episode, I have had to ask myself a few questions about what I rejoice in. I've had to ponder what I celebrate. Do I really dwell in the words of Christ, and do his words dwell within me? How we view our enemies, how we think about those who have hurt us, will determine our deliverance. Will we celebrate repentance in others? Will we extend the forgiveness of Christ to our enemies? Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Can you celebrate such a thing?
