Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others (20 page)

But Peter’s present mind-set and performance weren’t the biggest determining factors in his potential for building God’s kingdom. Jesus, who knows all things, already knew Peter was about to act as a stumbling block at the same time He was calling him a solid rock.

He called him a rock anyway.

See, God’s assessment of you isn’t limited by where you’ve been
before
or even where you are
now
. His words reflect the places He plans to take you and the purposes He intends to fulfill through you.

A couple of years ago I made my first trip to Australia. When I landed, after nineteen hours of flying, I decided to FaceTime the family back home. I wanted
to show the kids what Australia looks like and see them before they went to bed. It was about 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday in Sydney, which meant it was 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday in Charlotte.

I did my best to show the kids a few of the sights through the hotel window. They were disappointed by the absence of kangaroos. And confused by one other thing.

“Daddy,” Elijah asked, “why is it daytime there?”

I tried to explain to the kids about Australia being in a different hemisphere and how it’s across the International Date Line.

“Basically,” I summarized, “it’s tomorrow here.”

Judging by the response, I was sure my geography lesson had sailed right over their heads. Then at the end of the conversation as we were about to have our prayer and say goodnight, Elijah let me know otherwise. “Daddy, before you go, can you tell us what happens tomorrow?”

Let me tell you, it’s a pretty powerful feeling to deliver messages from the future.

“Tomorrow,” I started, “is an awesome day. Tomorrow you have perfect behavior. Tomorrow you get along. Tomorrow you respect your Mommy …”

I swear I saw Holly trying to give me an offering through the computer.

What I was pretending to do in that moment, God actually has the ability to do—every day of our lives. The One who lives outside of time invites you into a reality that is informed by His perfect plans to give you hope and a future.

God speaks in the past tense about battles you’re currently fighting.

And He buries the shame of yesterday in order to resurrect the moment you are in and sustain you in the season He is calling you to embrace.

Judas went out and hanged himself following his betrayal of Jesus, unable to imagine a redemptive end to his story.

After denying Jesus, Peter went on to preach on the day of Pentecost and help establish the Jerusalem church.

One was led by the voice of condemnation, which insisted his failure was permanent:
You’ll
always
be a traitor
.

The other had experienced the power of conviction and the tenderness of compassion by receiving the words of Christ:
On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades
will not
overcome it
.

What are the words of Christ for you and me, then? I would offer these:
You’ll
always
be chosen. Nothing can stop God’s work in your life
.

Condemnation will construct gallows out of your flaws and failures. But the Spirit’s conviction will point you to the Cross, where the cost of those sins has already been satisfied. And the Father’s compassion will fill you with forgiveness, raising you to new life …

Over and over again.

Have you seen any of those commercials about all the terrible things that will happen if you don’t switch to DirecTV? I’m sure it won’t be nearly as funny this way, but here’s a transcript of my favorite one:

This is my kind of humor—the more over the top, the better. Most people who know me would probably say that I’m pretty over the top—all or nothing—in almost every area of my life. In so many ways this works for me. It makes me passionate and driven and obsessive about some things that really matter, like my family, my ministry, and my walk with God.

But as Oswald Chambers said, “Unguarded strength is double weakness.”
⁶
And the same all-or-nothing mentality that can be a powerful tool when submitted to the Spirit can be a deadly weapon in the hands of condemnation.

For instance, when discipline in one area of my life starts to slide, it spreads quickly to all the other areas and gets blown way out of proportion:

When I miss exercising three weeks in a row, my pants start to feel a little tight
.

When my pants start to feel a little tight, I snooze the alarm a few extra times because I dread going through the exercise of finding pants that fit
.

When I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock too many times, I get a week behind on my YouVersion Bible reading plan
.

When I get a week behind on my YouVersion Bible reading plan, I’m embarrassed to pray because I feel like I’m delinquent in my commitment to God
.

When I’m not praying very much, I start behaving manipulatively and carnally, creating situations that could have been avoided
.

If only I’d switched to DirecTV.

I mean, stayed consistent with my exercise regimen.

Maybe the dominoes fall in a different sequence for you. What sets you off may be completely unrelated to the things I just mentioned. But I’m sure you’ve experienced the hell ride I’m describing: making a few small missteps, waking up in a ditch, pulling at your eye patch, wondering what happened.

That’s because condemnation is
pervasive
. It is not satisfied to wreck one room in your life; it wants to cut the gas line, light a match, and watch the whole thing burn.

There are two ways to stop this from happening.

The first is never ever screw up. Never. Never miss a day at the gym, a morning devotion, a Sunday at church, an opportunity to serve or encourage, a dentist appointment, or a donation to the volunteer fire department. Never lust, never envy, never gossip, never try tobacco or processed foods—and pray without ceasing for the peace of Jerusalem.

If you can live this way flawlessly, congratulations! Your perfection will starve condemnation to death. This is, by the way, what Paul said the law was powerless to do—because it was weakened by the flesh.

In other words, it’s a bad plan. It can’t be done.

Thank God for Jesus. Because He came, a better way is available.

Let’s look at Romans 8:3 again, but this time let’s read it in context:

The truth in that passage is forceful enough to pull up condemnation by its roots.

Read the passage again. Digest it. Own it. Declare it. Read it again.

Most of all, notice the key contrast: what
I
could never do,
God already did!

As a believer, I no longer live under the tyranny of condemnation, because God, the righteous Judge, condemned my sin in Christ.
ALL. All
of it!

Now the Spirit of God has shut the mouth of condemnation, rendering it mute when it comes face to face with all who are in Christ, for all eternity.

And this power is activated with this simple confession:

God says He has
.

Here’s a little story for you to recall the next time the Accuser starts his stuff with you. I bet I’ve shared this story over three hundred times in churches all over the world. I’m pretty sure it’s fictional. But it brings down the house every time.

There was an elderly lady who stood up one Sunday night during a testimony service in her little church and grabbed the mic. She said, “I just want to tell everybody how good God has been to me. You see, I was down to my last twenty dollars, and I gave it in the offering last week. I didn’t really know where my next meal was going to come from, my cupboards were empty, but I gave anyway and went home trusting God, hallelujah!”

She explained how her neighbor was an atheist and how he took every opportunity to mock her faith. “How can you trust in God,” he would prod, “when He’s done such a poor job providing for you?”

So when he heard she’d given her last twenty dollars, the neighbor decided to have a little fun with the old woman. He went to the store, purchased several bags of groceries, crept over to her house while she was inside, and placed the groceries on her front step. Then he knocked three times on the door and ran off to hide on his porch, awaiting her reaction.

Well, when the woman came out and saw the groceries, she got
happy
. All she could say was, “God did it! God did it! God did it!”

She said this over and over again, getting louder and louder each time. Her slow pacing on the front porch was slowly evolving into a full-blown dance, and now she was shouting: “God did it! God did it! God did it!”

Finally the atheist could stand no more. He sprinted to the steps of the woman’s porch and shouted, “Gotcha!”

Not knowing, or really caring, what he was talking about, the lady repeated, “God did it!”

“
God
didn’t do it,” the neighbor objected. “
I
bought the groceries.”

Unfazed, she replied, “God did it! God did it! God
did
it!”

Exasperated, the atheist screamed, “God didn’t do
anything
! Because your God doesn’t exist! Here’s the receipt for the groceries.
I
bought them so you’d finally be forced to admit that God is a figment of your imagination!”

After a long pause the woman declared, “
God
did it, and he made the devil
pay
for it!”

The next time the Enemy starts bombarding your mind with condemnation—about events that happened seconds ago or decades ago—make him pay. Take the opportunity to remind him of what God did and what He has promised to do for you.

God says He has saved me. And He is saving me.

God says He has forgiven me. And His grace is cleansing me.

God says He has called me. And His mercy is keeping me.

God says He has rescued my life from the pit. And His kindness is crowning me with love and compassion.

I promise you, the chatterbox can’t stand very much of this. Rehearsing the gospel—the good news of what Christ has done—will set off a nuclear meltdown in condemnation’s generating station.

Make the devil pay by reminding him of what Christ has done to redeem your past.

Renew your hope and confidence by reminding yourself of what Christ has done to secure your future.

Flip the script on the chatterbox.

Instead of allowing condemnation to make failure
personal
—labeling you with guilt and shame—allow God to personalize in your heart the love He has already demonstrated on the cross.
God so loved, not just the world as a whole but me as a person, that He gave His only Son
.

Instead of cementing yourself in past and current struggles and failures, affirm the
permanence
of the love of Christ. This love is the
only
thing that correctly claims to last forever.
I am convinced that nothing—in all creation—will
ever
be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord
.

And when the chatter starts in one area, don’t allow it access to every part of your life. Instead, allow your mind to be
pervaded
with an awareness of the fullness of Him who fills all things everywhere and yet still chooses to dwell in the brokenness of our hearts.

For most of us, none of this is new information. We already know plenty about what Christ has done.

But there’s a vast difference between knowing
about
what He’s done and
knowing it
. Knowing
about
it informs your mind.
Knowing
it—personally—will transform your heart and illuminate your path.

In fact, as we’re about to see, what we call spiritual progress is usually not about something we need to learn.

It’s about something we need to
remember
.