A Handyman’s View on Bread, Butter and Bible.
- Bread – Real Food
- Butter – Real Home
- Bible – Real Life
Normally, my devotional posts spotlight feminine or homemaking analogies. I’m a woman writing to (mostly) women, after all! Featured here, though, is a message for men! It’s real life. If your guy enjoys fixing up things around the house, then give that man a hunk of bread, a glass of tea and show him this blog!
Not your typical (recipe) renovation project
“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
Over time and throughout the circumstances of life, your thoughts and thereby, personality, were quite possibly (insert: highly likely) programmed by what the Bible calls a “spirit of fear.”
Fear is our enemy.
“Say what?”
“Fear?” “My thoughts?” “Huh?!”
Glad you asked!
One need not endure abuse or trauma to have been duped into listening to the voice of fear, although those sorrows certainly open the door to fear. Fear can enter the heart at any stage of life – at conception on through to adulthood – via anything that causes you to doubt the unconditional love and safety of your Heavenly Father. Be it any type struggle in school, a seemingly innocent encounter of feeling unsafe or unprotected, your dad not affirming you, growing up in a performance-based version of acceptance, being teased as a teenager or losing your job as an adult…all these, and more, open the door to the operation of fear in your life.
Five lies fear tells you
- You blew it! What a huge, horrible mistake. Now what?
- You’re average. You’re not unique. You’re blue collar, uneducated, poor and not special.
- You must take care of yourself. No one else will, especially God.
- That next phone call just might be the “big one.” Dread it or not, you better be ready.
- You “shoulda, coulda, woulda, ought to, didn’t do…” You and what you do are never good enough.
Do you want to courageously walk out of fear?
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20 MEV
According to this verse, the choice is yours: blessing or curse, life or death.
Life?
Yes!
Okay! Let’s roll!
Remodeling your thoughts
Having made the initial choice to walk out of fear, you now have the opportunity to learn how to apply that choice in real life. This begins with consistently reprogramming your mind with the Truth. It is a process, not a quick fix. Fear must be fully evacuated. If you’ve identified fear’s presence, if you’ve asked God to forgive you for it and if you’ve told fear to leave, it can no longer reside at the residence of your heart!
You must “gut” or “demo” the old thoughts down to the slab and then examine the surety of your foundation, thus confirming the framework of your new, remodeled “thought house” is solidly stable.
In reprogramming your mind, you will transform old patterns of thought (thoughts matching the adversary’s thoughts for you) into new patterns of thought (thoughts matching the Father’s thoughts for you!).
“Do not be conformed to this world (it’s thoughts, ideas, cultures) but be transformed by the RENEWING of your mind, so that you may prove (discern) what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:2 MEV, parentheses added
Conform to the Bible – Well Made Wellness
The word, “RENEW,” used in this Scripture is translated into English from the Greek word, “anakainosis” and means to “RENEW or RENOVATE.”
“Renovate” is defined as: To restore (something old, especially a building) to a good state of repair.
Renovation requires three things
- TIME
- EFFORT
- MATERIALS
On-the-job principles used in flipping a house apply to the process of renewing the mind!
It takes TIME.
Don’t give the enemy the pleasure of tricking you into believing you must be completely renewed right away! Rome wasn’t built in a day. Remodeling thoughts is a long – but doable – process. There will be days when things run smoothly, like when your hired help shows up and has all their supplies ready to go. There will be times when half your work crew calls in sick and it pours rain all day.
Give yourself the gift of patience. Little by little, you will overcome!
It takes EFFORT.
Accurately identify the root problem. If my ceiling is cracking at the doorframe, I don’t spackle the crack and call it a day. I investigate the possibility of movement in the structure’s foundation causing a crack in the ceiling, a seemingly unrelated area of the home.
Scripturally, according to 1 John 4:18, we can understand that “he who fears is not made perfect in love.” Do you have a problem with fear? Well, that’s a crack in your ceiling stemming from a faulty foundation – a foundation called LOVE.
Fear is caused by a breach in your love relationship – your love foundation – in one of three ways:
- You and Father God
- You and Others
- You and Yourself
You must work at the renewal of your mind. You must forgive fully and finally. You must daily, sometimes minute-by-minute, take your thoughts captive to the Word of God and daily work at remodeling those pathways of thought until they match the Word of God.
Daily make the choice to plant the Truth inside your mind through reading the Bible, listening to Audio Scripture and Praise Music 24/7. Guard your eyes, ears and heart against all ungodliness.
It takes MATERIALS.
You must choose what you allow your mind to meditate upon because those ideas are the building blocks of your thoughts.
Think about what you’re thinking about! This is a biggie because your thoughts become who you are. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s true.
Your thoughts actually develop into a physical part of your body (equally as tangible and identifiable as your kidney or your thumb) through certain chemical reactions in your brain. God meant business when He said in Proverbs 23:7, “as a man thinks, so is he.”
This is how fear causes all manner of diseases.
Put simply, you must be in charge of what’s running through your head. Be fully aware of what you allow your thoughts to drift away to during “down time.” This awareness is especially important when you feel tired or are involved in a passive activity like TV watching or driving a long way. The material you need for this job is the Word of God!
It yields results
Think about the wonder of God’s Word over and over and over and you will begin to see your old, fear-programmed thoughts transformed into life, joy, hope and peace!
FREEDOM!
Walk free from fear – Well Made Wellness
Thinking happy, Bible-based thoughts will become your default instead of the former downer thoughts. You may even notice more restful sleep at night and more pep in your step during the day!
For renovating your thoughts, LIKEN THE BIBLE TO THE HOME DEPOT OF YOUR HEART. After all, we read in 2 Peter 1:3 that God, through His power, has given you “everything you need pertaining to life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him” who called you!
God promises to help you to carry out the specs of your Flipper Upper thought project!
“Keep (guard) your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23 NKJV, parentheses NLT
I hope these words encourage men and women alike to overcome fear. Life is much more beautiful and doable in peace (and with homemade bread)!
With love and butter,
Jessica
I just read this to my husband while he’s driving, and his response was, “she’s speaking the language of a man! That was great!”
Thanks!
Wow! Thanks for reading it to your husband! I pray it sparked an overcoming conversation for you both!
Awesome, awesome Word. I am fully in agreement! I tell people all the time about how I was the biggest scardey cat in the whole world…and came by it handed down through my precious mama. But God delivered me and revealed His Truth and I’ve walked with no fear for so long…I don’t even know if I’d recognize it. It tried to come back once, at the birth of my daughter’s third child, She hemorrhaged…I was in the room…I thought she was going to die. I walked with it for a few days, but then it played too bold a hand, Holy Spirit revealed it, and I laughed it away! Praise God for being on His throne and loving me so very much to take perfect care of me! 🙂 Thank you Jess the Bread Believer for sharing this fantastic Word. I pray it will go forth and accomplish it’s every purpose. I [pray God will open doors for it to be shared out into the world a million times over! In the name of Yahshuah! Amen and Hallelujah!
Thanks for the words of wisdom….I’m living in a dysfunctional house that needs more than a remodel or gut job. It’s toxic!
You’re welcome, Stacy! There is always hope because God is in the business of renovating hearts and lives! Pursue Jesus, saturate yourself in the Bible! With love and butter, Jess, The Bread Believer