Shake It Off Sample

The Right Environment

Have you ever been in the smoking area of a restaurant? Maybe at an event or concert. You may not have smoked yourself, but you noticed that you had a strong cigarette smell when you got home.

You don't usually notice the smell that has attached itself to you until you change your environment. How important is the environment in which we are planted!

It is essential to be planted in the house of the Lord. You should be in a healthy environment where you are preached to in faith, where you speak to your potential, where you are pointed to a better future, and not condemned but empowered to rise and enter into all that God has prepared for your life. That's the kind of environment that should determine the type of things that stick with you.

In Acts 28:6, we read that the snake had not only bitten Paul, but it had attached itself to his hand. When he shook his hand, the snake fell into the fire.

I am sure that Paul's concern was not so much about the bite but about the poison's effect on his body.

In our lives, the effect of those wrong things that stick to us can harm, affect, and limit us. The world has a "sticky" ideology, a perspective that can have a negative effect on your life. And the enemy uses those things to corrupt the Gospel message and lead us to live the wrong way.

What has stuck to you that you need to shake out of your life? What are you carrying around that you may not even realize is there?

Our responsibility is to take authority over the things that cling to us and constantly shake off the wrong things that seek to harm and limit us.

Prayer: Lord, help me to stay planted in your house. I want the right things, all that is good and all that is pure, to cling to my life. Help me to recognize and remove negative things coming from the wrong environments. Amen.