Episode 605

TODAY’S READING

9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

1 Peter 5:9

Today’s devotional is brought to you by my pastor, Pastor Christopher J. Alessi.

This was a personal struggle for me. Just feeling sorry for oneself. And the truth is, this one just kind of comes down to no one ever wins anything by feeling sorry for themselves used to having this football coach. And when we’d be running, we’d have a full practice in the Miami Heat. And at the end of the day, we’re now running; we’re exhausted. And as we’re running slow, he’d be like, you feel sorry for yourself just like dog, but the more I look back on that, I think wow. You know, we do have a tendency to feel sorry. 

Self Pity is defined as an obsession over one’s own problems. And I believe there are a lot of examples of self-pity in the world. But I want to look at the verse for today. It’s in First Peter, chapter five, verse nine, it says, resist him being the enemy, the devil, resist the devil, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And I think there’s such a crazy verse there because to think that there’s more suffering in the world than I thought. Doesn’t seem like a good way to resist the devil. Anything it makes me feel like, oh, shoot, you’re suffering, dude. We’re all suffering men, and the devil is a lot better at his job than I thought. But what’s interesting about this is when you realize that this is not a specific problem for you. You start to de demon demonize your family or your friends. Because you realize that it’s not just it’s not as personal as you thought it was. Because other people are going through it too. You start to D demonize God because you realize, man, what I’m experiencing what I feel may not just be God’s issue with me. Then this is happening to other people. You start to it become less personal. And when it’s less personal, you can see it through a clear lens, and you can find out, hey, no one is against you. No one is trying to hurt you, especially God. So you come to find out that I resist the devil when I think there’s no one in my life that’s trying to tear me down on purpose. That’s not holding out on me. You know this is the interesting one because this is a little bit of what the enemy was trying to do with even the garden, Gods holding out on you. And that’s what we can believe so many times that God is holding out on us. 

There are things other people are experiencing, and I’m not, and then we insert a particular reason, and normally that reason is a person. But I’ll tell you, there’s nothing one on the battlefield of self-pity. Nobody ever got the life they wanted. I feel sorry for them. It’s just an example. But you know, Chip and Joanna Gaines, I feel we’re on the Magnolia network right now. This is that’s how beautiful this whole thing is. You get the life that they have. Can you imagine if they were being interviewed on there, like, you know how we got all this? Man, we just felt so sorry for ourselves. Our life was just so hard, and we just were like, This is not fair. And it got so unfair that one day we just got all this stuff because it had to be evened out. Now the people who get the lives they want are those that find a way to push past all that. And they pursue the reality of God’s word, which is we all have seeds. And if we sow the right seed, we’ll get the right harvest is a reason seed goes underground, so nothing above it can mess with it. Maybe you do have bad people in your life. Maybe there are things that come naturally to you right now that aren’t good for you. And you may be nervous that you can get in the way. Well, guess what? That’s why the seed goes in the ground. You can’t mess with it. Neither can I. And that’s why it’s so important to recognize, hey, and we’re all going through stuff. This is more of a seed issue. I gotta start sowing good seeds, so I can have the life that I want. And I’m not gonna win if I’m sowing seeds of self-pity. I say it in the book, but there’s an incredible man in the Word of God who felt at some low lows because of self-pity. And if he would have heard Peters words, I probably wouldn’t have found himself in that cave. So I want you today I want you to realize that God is so good and he’s so big that there’s no room in God’s truth for us to feel sorry for ourselves because you are a victor. Not a victim. You are the head. You are not the tail; you are above; you are not beneath; you are more than a conqueror. So there’s no room in any of that you’re feeling sorry for yourself. This is not necessarily the most feel-good, but it actually is. Because there’s a freedom and a refreshing that comes in realizing this isn’t personal. 

Prayer:

Father, I pray for every person struggling with the clickbait of self-pity, feeling sorry for themselves, and obsessing over their problems. Lord, I pray that they would see you are obsessing over their problems. And you’ve given them all the seed they need to get a better harvest. So I pray that you’d give them the strength and the wisdom to sow the seed so they can live the life you’ve made available. To in Jesus’ name. Amen.