If you pick up a newspaper today, it’s difficult to find any good news. News websites, social media feeds, and newspapers fill their stories with hate, sorrow, and pain. The world’s media outlets love printing bad news. It thrives on sensationalizing the negative and destroying its enemies.
If our enemy were to publish a daily newspaper about your life, what would it say? What would he report about you? He’d fill it with stories of regret, private hurts, and unfair accusations. The headlines would proclaim your past mistakes and insecurities to the world. Page after page would be stained with marks of indictments and condemnation.
Some of us have received new articles in our lives today—stories about our sin or failures, things that have happened in our relationships or in our hearts we don’t want to admit, yet the paper continues to get thicker every time it’s delivered.
We don’t want anyone to read those stories. We’re desperate to keep our image, so as the news gets delivered anew each day, we rush out to grab it before anyone else can see it. We bring them inside and pile them up in the home of our souls, hoarding the negative things our enemies have published about us. Soon we’re unable to move or devote time to anything but hiding our secret stash of regret and shame.
But again and again, new accusations are delivered.
So where’s the good news?
If the accusations keep coming, why bother going to church or singing songs or seeking Christ?
Despite these charges, we can live in hope because we’ve discovered the best news ever.
We have a God who recycles. [tweetshareinline tweet=”We have a God who recycles.” username=”joshuajmasters”]
When Christ comes into your life, he doesn’t just add another article to your editorial page, hoping it will counterbalance all the other bad news in your life. He removes the piles from your home, bleaches the negative words from your record, tearing the fibers apart as He recycles the news of your life into something new.
No one can ever go back into the archives because He has erased them.
And when the enemy tries to deliver a new paper in the morning, we’ll rush out like we always do to hide the charges against us, but when we look at that chronicle of our lives we’ll discover it’s been rewritten each day.
Now the journal of our lives has a single byline written by Jesus Christ. And the headline simply reads, “MINE.”
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.”
(Revelation 12:10 NIV)
How would it transform your life if you only read what Christ has written about you and rejected the accusations our enemy tries to defeat you with?
What steps can you take toward that goal? Let’s encourage one another in the comments below.
Joshua, this is great and it’s just what Jesus would want us to read.
Amen, Barbara. Thank you.
Oh. My. Goodness. This is powerful, Joshua!! You grabbed from the first line and this one really got me…”Now the journal of our lives has a single byline written by Jesus Christ. And the headline simply reads, “MINE.”
I’m so grateful to be known by that byline!
Peace and grace,
Tammy
Thank you so much, Tammy. I really appreciate your encouragement and kind words. I’m happy that this post was able to build you up today. I pray we all remember who has written our byline.
Love it! What a great way of looking at our life. I love that God recycles, making something new out of a worn-out and worn down life. I want to be better at reading what God writes about me than believing the lies Satan writes and whispers in my ear.
What a great way of getting a great message across.Thank you!
I agree, I’d love to get better at only reading what God has written about me. Thank you, Stephanie.
Interesting idea – God Recycling. I’ve always leaned toward God creating new – like he did with David’s heart. Recycling has always felt like reusing – but when you describe it as creating something new out of something that was – I get it.
Thank you, Denise. I’m so glad the post was thought provoking. I’m so grateful God transforms my past into something new and useful for His Kingdom. God is always working, always redeeming the hurts in my life.
What an uplifting and loving picture of our heavenly Father. I am so grateful that our heavenly Father is recycling my life. In the recycling if my life I am also blessed occasionally by God allowing my recycled ashes to be used as a tool to help someone else struggling with a similar past. Forever grateful to my Lord Jesus.
Isn’t it amazing how God uses our broken past o build others up and draw them closer to Him? It’s hard to understand that kind of love, but His grace and love for us is greater than any failure in our lives. Praise God. Thank you, Becky.
I agree with many of the other comments, Joshua, about especially liking the idea that we have a God that recycles. This part of the sentence resonated with me: “He recycles the news of your life into something new.” God has good plans for all of us, and how exciting that headline will be, instead of one from the enemy.
Amen to that, Julie. Thank you for your encouragement and kind words. It’s so wonderful when we see Christ writing a new headline in our lives.
An encouraging post. I am trying to have more faith in God’s love for me, instead of focusing on criticism and anxiety.
I pray that the Lord encourages you and draws you closer to His words for you. May His voice drown out the anxiety causing lies of this world and Satan. Thank you for your honest comment. Blessings to you.
Thank you so much. Blessings to you.
I like the idea of God redeeming the story of my life. Each day starts anew with the enemy’s lies, but I have to choose to allow God’s truths to outshine the lies. Thanks for the reminder.
That’s a great way to put it, Joanna. “I have to choose to allow God’s truth to outshine the lies.” That’s very well said. Thank you.
Eliminating that negative newspaper would totally transform our thinking. With no accusations coming against us our minds would only absorb the good. But since that newscast is not going away because the enemy is still there, our job is to turn the power box off so we don’t hear it. Thanks for this great word picture!
You’re welcome, Barbara. I agree, we must tune out the lies and negativity of our enemy.
“We have a God who recycles.”
This has got to be a T-shirt slogan, a sermon title, or, at the very least, a click to tweet. I love this! What a great metaphor for the soul-cleansing work of the cross.
Thank you for the encouraging words, K.A. I think that’s a great idea! I’ve added a Twitter link for that phrase to the post. Thanks for the great suggestion. I really appreciate it… and we’ll have to look at getting those other products made. 🙂
Pastor Josh.
What a great article! I am the definition of recycling and starting anew each day.
I have managed to fight through battles enemies tried to win but God always guided and directed me through, showing His constant love.
I am blessed by the reminder of that in your post today. Thank you.
Thank you, Julie. May we all be reminded that we have been recycled and renewed for a greater purpose and hope.
The world would be changed if we truly believed what God says about us. If we chose not to listen to the enemy, we would be compassionate and loving toward each other. I pray I will only listen to God and not the enemy. Great post.
Amen, Melissa. That’s my prayer, as well. May we all be a reflection of the compassion He’s shown us to those He puts in our path.
It would change my thoughts. What I focus on, words I see or hear, influence my beliefs, thoughts, and actions.
I think that’s exactly right, Dawn. May we all strive for those changes in our lives through Christ. Thank you.
“A God that recycles.” What a powerful thought Pastor Joshua. I’ve long understood a God that restores; I’ve never considered how He recycles. I love that picture. Here on the ranch, we don’t have recycling bins, “Blue Bag” programs, or special recyclable pickup days during the week. With feed sacks containing fifty pound of feed at a time, you can imagine how quickly those empty sacks (y’all might call them bags) can accumulate. My recycling program is to collect the empties in a large metal cage and every couple of weeks have a bonfire. As I tend each one, watching carefully that no embers fly away that could cause problems, the HUGE pile of feed sacks, cardboard boxes (mama loves Amazon), and other paper products are reduced to a double-handful of ash, which is good for my pastures in just minutes. As I watch this transformational process take place, I envision the same things happening with my sins when I release them to God in repentant confession. Yes, I’m restored, but I’m also recycled as God reuses the good things He created me with in His service.
That’s a great way to illustrate it, J.D. He not only transforms us, but turns us into something useful for the Kingdom. Just like the ash you use in your fields, god uses the redeemed parts of our path to grow fruit, both in ourselves and in the opportunities He gives us to represent Him in the world. Thanks so much for this great comment.