In our family, both immediate and extended we have a strange quirk called “toilet humor”. The men folk especially think themselves hilarious when they get going, as they try to best one another on who has the funniest toilet related joke. Yes it’s strange but true.
However there is one poop line which I remember a young guy sharing many years ago, which has become a family one liner. It’s that the “devil is like poo on the bottom of your shoe, and you just need to wipe him off”.
Now literally if we did stand in poop, the first thing we’d do after becoming aware that we had stood in a mess would be to remove the offending poo as swiftly, and by any means possible. Who in their right minds wants poop anywhere on their person?
But unfortunately how many of us don’t do the same thing with the muck the devil thinks up and throws at us? Everything and anything that stinks, that looks like, or results in fear, sickness, pain, poverty, hopelessness, and evil is straight from the pit of hell. There is no good in anything the devil peddles, he is the ultimate liar and deceiver and “he comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10) He is a thief of people’s joy, their hope, their deliverance, their health, their relationships, their families, their wealth, their dreams and ultimately their eternal life in heaven. All of that looks and smells like “poop” to me! Yes it may offend or gross some people out to talk about “poop”, but sometimes you need to call it for what it is – Poop, straight from the pit of hell!
But far to often we allow the “poop” to stick to us, we can even pick it up and examine it wondering if any of it has or has the power to stick to us. Or worse, we even consider that God may have sent it to test or grow us somehow.
How you say? When we see something on television or listen to someone who’s speaking about some disaster, or someone dying of some stinking disease, and we start to think “Oh is that in my family, am I going to get that, maybe I do have that???” We sit and examine the “poop” so to speak, and fear starts to take hold in our lives.
Or maybe we hear something about a financial crisis and start to panic about our provision. Again we have examined the devil’s peddling of his “poop!”:We can end up living life in fear and dread of the future. The devil whispers “what if” in our ears and eyes and we listen and let it stick.
When in actual fact when we know Jesus he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” (Matthew 28:19) And when we have Jesus in our life that authority resides on the inside of each one of us. It’s something available to every person. If you come to Jesus and ask him to forgive you of your mess up’s, and choose to follow his way of doing things, he says that devil poop has no power or authority to harm you any longer. Regardless of what may be going on around you, no weapon formed against you will be able to prosper. The blessing has gone into operation in your life. Even if a thousand fall at your right hand and ten thousand at your left it will by no means come near you” (Psalm 91).
Jesus has rescued us from the devil’s ability to harm us, and steal our peace and joy. He says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened [by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation]. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me[following Me as My disciple], for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest (renewal, blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is easy [to bear] and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Jesus came to destroy the devils ability to harm us. And he did it. The problem is we are still believing the liar’s that the devil and his cohorts are, and worse still we allow ourselves to just sit in the muck that he throws around the place. That’s how it starts to affect us and even get stuck on us. Stuff grows in poop.
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” (John 3:8)
But I for one have had quite enough of poop! I have had enough of the bad news that is spewed at us from every possible means. I have had enough of bad news stories, and people living in hopelessness and defeat. I have had enough of the lies that people believe that we “will probably get sick and die when we are old”, the expectation that our “young people will go out and get smashed stupid on alcohol and drugs, doing who knows what because that’s just the way it is”. I have had enough of hearing that most marriages don’t last, and that family doesn’t mean what it used to mean.
Why do we put up with poop like that? Because we believe we can’t change anything, and so we put our heads down and just try to do our best. That’s all very well, except we aren’t called to just put our heads down, and come under things. We are called to be world changers, to govern from heaven’s authority and standards. We are called to know who we are in God and believe, and speak and act like it.
We are in actual fact called to get rid of all the devil’s poop wherever we go. That when we pray, we believe something is going to change, because we are so full of what God says; we are so full of God and the power of the blessing inside of us, that no stinking thing the devil is peddling can stick around, but instead is thrown right back at him.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone”. (Mark 16:15) What’s that good news? That we don’t have to come under the devil’s muck – His poop anymore. See it for what it is. It’s muck, his rubbish, that we have no business with except to act as God’s sanitary agents. The “good news” is that we don’t have to be sick, poor, broken, hopeless, alone, or dreamless anymore. Not only that, but nobody else you know has to either.
Today if you’ve been allowing “poop” into your life, make a decision to get that muck right out of your life. You are better, stronger and more loved than that. Don’t settle for less than what Jesus says you are worth, and desires to give you. Pick up your “pooper scooper” and with Jesus’s help, in the authority of who you are in Him, shovel that stuff right out of your life!
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