As I sit here at work my mind runs across all the “garbage” that is polluting my life. Garbage is anything in your life that is not adding value to your physical or spiritual life. Anything that takes away value is considered to be “garbage.” The garbage in your life doesn’t have to be anything major it could be something simple as spending too much time watching TV when you could use that time to volunteer or study the Bible or spend time with family/friends or do something more productive.
What is considered to be garbage differs for each individual. The best way to know if something or someone in your life is ‘garbage’ evaluate the good it brings to you and how it is helping to shape you as an individual.
If something makes you feel depressed, stressed, caused you to have low self-esteem, hurts you, makes you feel like nothing, etc… then maybe it doesn’t belong in your life and you need to get rid of it.
Look into your life, what is holding you back? What is causing you to disobey the voice of God? What is causing you to sin against the Lord? What is causing you to miss church? What is causing you to lose desire in having a fellowship with the people of God? There are so many other questions that can be asked.
As human beings we tend to collect a lot of things that later on becomes junk or garbage. The same way how we clean our house/car sometimes, get our car service or reformat our computers to keep them clean and running well. That same concept applies to our lives. There are certain times in our life when we need to get rid of things we had for years, get rid of things we don’t use or change the way we do certain things or get involve in something new. Cleaning up our lives may involve getting rid of people who bring no value to our life or things that crowd us (physically or spiritually). Don’t be a garbage collector!
Getting rid of garbage physically we have certain days we put out our garbage to be collected by the garbage truck or in a dumpster. What happens when we keep garbage in our house too long? It makes the place smell and pollutes the atmosphere. If we don’t get rid of the garbage immediately it can cause us to become ill.
Other ways we get rid of junk and garbage is to do spring cleaning or fall cleaning to get rid of things in our house that we don’t need. There may be times when we donate older things we don’t want to throw away to the Salvation Army or others in need.
Throughout the past years we allow a lot of unnecessary things into our lives. We allow ourselves to form bad habits or we just allow negative people into our lives. Most of the time your conscience bother you when there is something in your life that doesn’t belong there. But most of us try to ignore our conscience and keep the item anyway.
As Christians we need to get rid of the old useless garbage in our lives and make room for new and better things in our lives. Evaluate the people you have in your life, how are they affecting your spiritual growth? Do you have some friends that are forcing you to go outside of your Christian walk with the Lord? Are you with someone that is encouraging to you commit fornication, drink alcohol, smoke, go to clubs, use profane language, get involve in fights, or finding other things to do instead of attending church? If you answer yes to any of those options, that might be someone that you don’t need in your life.
One thing I notice is that some of our family members may be bad influences in our life. Some of them might fall into the ‘garbage’ category of things that are polluting our lives. Now the question is do you stop hanging out with them? That is a tricky question because you love them, you want to help bring them to the Lord but they are pulling you down spiritually. I don’t have an absolute way of resolving this issue, except that you will have to seek the Lord on the best way to approach this situation.
Personally for me I still hang around my family members that might be in the ‘garbage; category. The best way I see is to set standards and let them know firmly what you believe in and what you will not tolerate in your presence. If they smoke tell them not to smoke around you. If they drink let them know they have to be sober if they want to hang out with you. If they use profane language, let them know to watch their words around you. If they like to go to the club don’t allow them to force you into going. Most of the time if you let them know how you truly feel about their influence in your life they will show you respect. But if you compromise or try to endure the things they do to you it will have a negative affect. This is probably one of the hardest things in our live to clean up. People might have an unsaved husband, best friend, children, family members, so call church buddies that are not following the commandments of the Lord, and all other people that are close to us. This is where we have to stand up for what we believe.
If we allow the ones we love to influence us to backslide or commit sinful acts before the Lord, they have become an idol in our lives. Anything that you put before God or that you are not willing to leave behind for the Lord is an idol.
To stay in the Lord’s will we sometimes have to drop off some of our so called friends. The reason I say ‘so called friend’ is because a real friends will respect your belief no matter how different it is from their view on life. A real friend doesn’t force you to do things that go against what you believe. A real friend looks out for you and make sure you stay in line to your goals in life. Not everyone we call ‘friend’ is truly a friend to us.
To clarify, I am not telling you to stop talking to everyone and walk around like you are too good to talk to them. You can talk to them on a basic level but don’t allow them to be a bad influence or direct your life. You should be the leader when you meet with them.
I challenge you all today to sit down and think of all the things in your life that is ‘garbage’. It could be your attitude, your life style, your habits, the things you do to occupy yourself with, materialistic things, so called friends or even a family member—and put it out for the garbage truck to pick up.
The Lord knows the best way to get rid of our garbage. He will remove it from us, as far as the east is from the west. All we have to do is cast our burdens and unwanted things on Him and he will get rid of it for us. There will be some actions we will have to perform, but after we do our part the Lord will do His and eliminate the unwanted things.
Now once you put your garbage in the dumpster, don’t go back looking for it. Let it go! We sometimes try to stay with our garbage by convincing ourselves that we can change it or use it for something else. Brothers and sisters please stop crowding your life with unwanted things and people. If it doesn’t belong, get rid of it.
What is considered to be garbage differs for each individual. The best way to know if something or someone in your life is ‘garbage’ evaluate the good it brings to you and how it is helping to shape you as an individual.
If something makes you feel depressed, stressed, caused you to have low self-esteem, hurts you, makes you feel like nothing, etc… then maybe it doesn’t belong in your life and you need to get rid of it.
Look into your life, what is holding you back? What is causing you to disobey the voice of God? What is causing you to sin against the Lord? What is causing you to miss church? What is causing you to lose desire in having a fellowship with the people of God? There are so many other questions that can be asked.
As human beings we tend to collect a lot of things that later on becomes junk or garbage. The same way how we clean our house/car sometimes, get our car service or reformat our computers to keep them clean and running well. That same concept applies to our lives. There are certain times in our life when we need to get rid of things we had for years, get rid of things we don’t use or change the way we do certain things or get involve in something new. Cleaning up our lives may involve getting rid of people who bring no value to our life or things that crowd us (physically or spiritually). Don’t be a garbage collector!
Getting rid of garbage physically we have certain days we put out our garbage to be collected by the garbage truck or in a dumpster. What happens when we keep garbage in our house too long? It makes the place smell and pollutes the atmosphere. If we don’t get rid of the garbage immediately it can cause us to become ill.
Other ways we get rid of junk and garbage is to do spring cleaning or fall cleaning to get rid of things in our house that we don’t need. There may be times when we donate older things we don’t want to throw away to the Salvation Army or others in need.
Throughout the past years we allow a lot of unnecessary things into our lives. We allow ourselves to form bad habits or we just allow negative people into our lives. Most of the time your conscience bother you when there is something in your life that doesn’t belong there. But most of us try to ignore our conscience and keep the item anyway.
As Christians we need to get rid of the old useless garbage in our lives and make room for new and better things in our lives. Evaluate the people you have in your life, how are they affecting your spiritual growth? Do you have some friends that are forcing you to go outside of your Christian walk with the Lord? Are you with someone that is encouraging to you commit fornication, drink alcohol, smoke, go to clubs, use profane language, get involve in fights, or finding other things to do instead of attending church? If you answer yes to any of those options, that might be someone that you don’t need in your life.
One thing I notice is that some of our family members may be bad influences in our life. Some of them might fall into the ‘garbage’ category of things that are polluting our lives. Now the question is do you stop hanging out with them? That is a tricky question because you love them, you want to help bring them to the Lord but they are pulling you down spiritually. I don’t have an absolute way of resolving this issue, except that you will have to seek the Lord on the best way to approach this situation.
Personally for me I still hang around my family members that might be in the ‘garbage; category. The best way I see is to set standards and let them know firmly what you believe in and what you will not tolerate in your presence. If they smoke tell them not to smoke around you. If they drink let them know they have to be sober if they want to hang out with you. If they use profane language, let them know to watch their words around you. If they like to go to the club don’t allow them to force you into going. Most of the time if you let them know how you truly feel about their influence in your life they will show you respect. But if you compromise or try to endure the things they do to you it will have a negative affect. This is probably one of the hardest things in our live to clean up. People might have an unsaved husband, best friend, children, family members, so call church buddies that are not following the commandments of the Lord, and all other people that are close to us. This is where we have to stand up for what we believe.
If we allow the ones we love to influence us to backslide or commit sinful acts before the Lord, they have become an idol in our lives. Anything that you put before God or that you are not willing to leave behind for the Lord is an idol.
To stay in the Lord’s will we sometimes have to drop off some of our so called friends. The reason I say ‘so called friend’ is because a real friends will respect your belief no matter how different it is from their view on life. A real friend doesn’t force you to do things that go against what you believe. A real friend looks out for you and make sure you stay in line to your goals in life. Not everyone we call ‘friend’ is truly a friend to us.
To clarify, I am not telling you to stop talking to everyone and walk around like you are too good to talk to them. You can talk to them on a basic level but don’t allow them to be a bad influence or direct your life. You should be the leader when you meet with them.
I challenge you all today to sit down and think of all the things in your life that is ‘garbage’. It could be your attitude, your life style, your habits, the things you do to occupy yourself with, materialistic things, so called friends or even a family member—and put it out for the garbage truck to pick up.
The Lord knows the best way to get rid of our garbage. He will remove it from us, as far as the east is from the west. All we have to do is cast our burdens and unwanted things on Him and he will get rid of it for us. There will be some actions we will have to perform, but after we do our part the Lord will do His and eliminate the unwanted things.
Now once you put your garbage in the dumpster, don’t go back looking for it. Let it go! We sometimes try to stay with our garbage by convincing ourselves that we can change it or use it for something else. Brothers and sisters please stop crowding your life with unwanted things and people. If it doesn’t belong, get rid of it.
It is always refreshing to see young people sold out for God. So right, we all do need to get rid of those things that keep us back from moving forward and succeed in our relationship with God. The past few years have been a life changing experience for me and I have watched the Lord work miracles after miracles in my life. This affords me to stop and look back and see where I can improve in my life to have a better relationship with God. I truly enjoy reading your post keep up the good work and God bless and keep you always.
ReplyDeleteLorna
It is true that we need to do a continual claeaning and take inventorty of our lives and friends to ensure they are sources of quality and spiritual uplift in our lives. This article was a good reminder at the beginning of the year to take an inventorty and remove the garabage like areas and friends in our lives,
ReplyDelete