Preach it!

         I love these wise words from  Paul David Tripp--
We just never stop talking
to ourselves.
We never stop preaching
some kind of gospel
to ourselves.
It's a gospel of
aloneness,
partiality,
poverty,
inability--
of functional hopelessness--
or
it's the true gospel of
Jesus Christ,
a gospel of
hope,
mercy,
forgiveness,
rescue,
love,
transformation;
of never being alone,
of never being without help;
of One who is near,
of One who cares;
of a beautiful forever
awash in victory.
We're always listening
to
what we're preaching.
        I've repeated it ad nauseam, but we (or at least I) need to be reminded ad infinitum!  We're always preaching to ourselves, and we--yes we--each decide what we will be preaching and preaching and preaching to ourselves.  Stop blaming your parents or your siblings or your boss or your friends or your politicians or your enemies or your circumstances or your whatever!  We choose what we preach to ourselves, and what we choose radically affects our thinking, our attitudes, our behavior, our everything!
       So what will it be: the life-giving, joy-sustaining, hope-infusing, strength-reviving Truth of the Gospel or the negative, worrying, destroying, despairing, fretting, complaining lies of the enemy and of our selfish flesh?  We choose.  On a moment-by-moment basis, we choose what we will preach and repeat and imbibe and digest.  And what we choose slowly but inexorably transforms us into people of faith, hope, and love or into people of fear, despair, and hatred.
       "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season," Paul says in 2 Tim.4:2.  And this written by a man imprisoned for what he knows is the last time and facing his imminent execution.  But he's still preaching to others and to himself.  As he nears the end of his life, these are some of his final words: "I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race.  I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing." (2 Tim.4:7-8)                   In a dark Roman dungeon.  Alone.  Cold.  Facing execution.  And Paul's preaching it all the way to the end...which for him meant the beginning.
        How about us?  What are we preaching to ourselves on a daily basis?  What are we preaching today?  Let's choose the Truth of the gospel, the word of Life, the very Word of Almighty God.  Preach it!
         To God be the glory.