Life Killer – #13 Past

One thing that the devil tries to use as destruction in many believer’s lives from keeping them to live a life with purpose is their “Past.” He will keep them in the past if they don’t learn how to stand on the truth. He will always remind you who you were and what you did. He will make you feel like God won’t ever use you because of your past.

The truth is there’s no one without the past. We all sin differently. We made some mistakes. If God can use only perfect people who never made a mistake or have a painful past, there’s no one He can use. Not even one person! The bible is filled with people who made mistakes. But God chose them and used them in mighty ways. They changed human history. 

If you struggle to overcome what happened in your past, here are some things that you can ponder.

Life Killer – #12 Perfectionism

Are you a perfectionist? If so, is the level of perfection your expectation? Or the level of perfection is other people’s expectations… Chasing perfection has no end either way. Of course, you don’t want to settle on “good enough” level with laziness but you also don’t want to set the unrealistic level of expectation of perfection that loses control of your life in the wrong way.

Perfection with your own expectation is oftentimes based on insecurity. It is actually desiring the acceptance that makes you feel better about yourself and secure emotionally. The acceptance that you are looking for is not only by others but it could be on your own as well. Some people look for acceptance from God also by doing the perfect work or being. This type of perfection is often hard on yourself and won’t give any break. If you are a person who hard on yourself, you know what I’m talking about.

Life Killer – #11 Fear

Do you struggle with fear of any kind? The bible tells us not to fear 365 times. That means we must remember not to fear every day of our lives. Yet, fear has a strong grip on many people and is keeping people’s live’s limited and small. Can you imagine how many people took their dreams to their graves because of fear? Fear will take over your life if you don’t conquer it. Here are things that you will miss out on in your life because of fear.

1. You’ll never discover the purpose of your life
2. You’ll never accomplish to reach your goals
3. Your dreams will stay as dreams
4. You’ll never see your whole potential
5. You’ll never create close human connections

Life Killer – #10 Ungrateful

Do you know the power of a grateful heart? It changes your viewpoint of life. It finds more blessings in your life that you can’t even think of otherwise. It makes your heart tender and makes your speech so sweet toward other people in your life. A grateful heart strengthens our faith in God. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV says,

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

If the Word of God says this is the will of God, not being grateful is a sin. It’s disobedience to Him. A grateful heart is like a magnet of blessings.

An ungrateful heart, on the other hand, will miss so many ministry opportunities, spiritual blessings, earthly blessings, good friendships, and your joy in Christ. An ungrateful heart will make your heart bitter and hard. God has so much favor He wants to give to His children, but the ungrateful heart shuts the door and keeps us from receiving them.

Life Killer – #9 Words

How do you speak to yourself? Are you kind to yourself? You might speak to others very kindly but when it comes to you, what are you telling yourself? Words we speak have the power to shift our lives to both good or bad. Proverbs 18:21 says,

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

It is amazing how we can be so kind and forgiving to those who don’t have the confidence or made some mistakes in their life. But when it comes to our own mistakes or self-confidence, we tend to beat ourselves down instead. Often times those words we speak to ourselves are coming from our childhood, words that parents have spoken over us or unkind words that our siblings or friends said. They still echo in our minds and they made a residence in our spirit as we rehearsed too many times. After we hearsed so many times, they became our own voice, and now we believe them as that’s what we are.

Life Killer – #8 Unbelief

Unbelief can stop you from living in the fullness of your life and God’s calling on your life. We love what Jeremiah 29:11 says.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God already has a great plan for your life since even before the foundation of this earth was formed. He gives you promises and callings to fulfill your purpose in life. God is committed to you and your life. His ways are unshakable. He doesn’t change His mind. The part that He plays in your life is perfect and it’s a done deal. How about your part?

God can plan the mighty things in your life. But it takes your corporation. your partnership. It’s called “Faith.” Unbelief can stop you from experiencing what God can do with your life. We all want to know what God is doing. But unfortunately, He won’t tell us everything or show us what to come. Unbelief can be caused by the disappointment you’ve experienced in the past. If that’s the case, you must remember that God knows the best and His ways are always better. So how can we overcome our unbelief?

Life Killer – #7 Expectation

Our own idea of expectations is Life Killer! There’s a difference between God-inspired expectations and our own self-centered expectations. How do we define the difference?

We are born selfish. We’ve been practiced “Give me, Give me” and “I want, I want” since we learned the very first word to speak. As we grew older or especially after we came to Christ, we’ve learned how to suppress that need a little bit. But our self-centered sin nature always takes us back to the place we think to ourselves, “What about me? What’s for me? What do I get?” We tend to create our own expectations for what we should have, which position we should be in by now, or how we should be treated by other people in life.  We expect so many things in life that we think we deserve. In Psalm 5:3, David prayed like this,

Life Killer – #6 Disappointments

Disappointment is a part of life. No one lives without disappointments. Of course, we wish we could live a life that there is no heartache by disappointments we have to deal with. But we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people. Imperfect ourselves are trying to live with the best we can. There are different degrees of disappointments.

It rained when you were planning to do some outdoor activities. An item you ordered online wasn’t nothing like the image you saw when the UPS man delivered it at your door. Dinner guests canceled the plan and you and your spouse had to eat the same meal for the next two days… Those types of everyday disappointments are upsetting at the moment yet you can overcome easily and quickly. But there are situations rise up in our lives that are sometimes hard to overcome.

Life Killer -#5 Opinions

Another Life Killer we can talk about is people’s “Opinions.” We are human. We want to be liked and accepted by other people. Even those people that say, “I don’t care what other people think about me”, that’s not really their heart. Often people who say things like that will cut off their deep relationship with people around them so that they don’t have to feel the pain of “not being liked.”

Yes, people have their opinions just like we have one. But are those opinions based on the truth? No, not always. Most of the time they are coming from how “they” feel about things of other people or their view of life. Sometimes their opinions come from their experiences in the past. People’s opinions have no solid ground.

Sometimes we get confused about the opinion about ourselves as to how people think about us when they are just our feeling of ourselves. Our opinions about ourselves are not always how people see us or think about us. So whose opinion we should trust? What does our Maker, the Creator, and our Heavenly Father says about us?

Life Killer – #4 Voices

Do you hear voices? Well, I’m not asking if you are crazy. But many of us struggle to live everyday life with voices we hear in our minds. They might be something that created in your past by your mistakes. They might be the words that somebody carelessly spoke to you and you just can’t shake it off. Or they might be coming from your self-image. However, voices we hear in our mind can sure control our lives. Often times they will limit us doing what God called us to do or be who we can be in the way God meant us to be.

We make mistakes no matter how we want to be perfect and sinless. That’s why we need Christ. Often times those mistakes that we made in our past and bring back the memories and reminds us how bad we were. The enemy of our soul – the Devil – doesn’t know everything about us but he studies us and well knows what we have done in the past.