I get so frustrated with myself sometimes when I return to the same old sin. Repeating and repeating. Suffering the consequences for it and the guilt all over again. I have been trying to figure out why I can't get myself to choose not to do that same sin.
Well, recently the Lord revealed something to me that I just hadn't connected before. So often we think it's about having more will power or determination. Or more help from God. But as I think this through I have come to realize that there is nothing at all wrong with my will power or with the power of the Holy Spirit inside of me. I have a very strong will and it's very much alive and active. The problem really lies within my desires and my thoughts. Maybe desires that have become more important to me than obeying God. Or sinful thoughts that have become a part of who I am. I have a very strong will, it's just dysfunctional because of my desires and thoughts.
It's not about mustering up more determination or receiving more of God's help or power. It's about my desires. If I had desires to obey God and my thoughts were like having the mind of Christ I believe this would make it alot easier to have a healthy will.
So, I think from now on, instead of trying harder I am going to take a few steps back and ask God to show me what desires are in my heart that led me into sin. I am going to retrace my steps and find out where I first had the wrong thought. Where I processed something wrong. I can use Philippians 4:8 to help evaluate if my thoughts are right or not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
you commented on my friend LeAnne's blog & since then I check you out every so often...
As I was struggling in the same manner a friend of mine was reading St Augustine's Confessions... He sent me the commentary on Romans 7 & I thought it quite amazing...
“The enemy held my will in his power and from it he had made a chain and shackled me. For my will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust, habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These were the links which together formed what I have called my chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude. But the new will which had come to life in me and made me wish to serve you freely and enjoy you, my God, who are our only certain joy, was not yet strong enough to overcome the old, hardened as it was by the passage of time. So these two wills within me, one old, one new, one the servant of the flesh, the other of the spirit, were in conflict and between them they tore my soul apart….”
“Instead of fearing, as I ought, to be held back by all that encumbered me, I was frightened to be free of it. In fact I bore the burden of the world as contentedly as one sometimes bears a heavy load of sleep. My thoughts, as I meditated upon you, were like the efforts of a man who tries to wake but cannot and sinks back into the depths of slumber. No one wants to sleep forever, for everyone rightly agrees that it is better to be awake. Yet a man often staves off the effort to rouse himself when his body is leaden with inertia. He is glad to settle down once more, although it is against his better judgement and it is already time he were up and about. In the same way I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself up to your love than to surrender to my own lust. But while I wanted to follow the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the pleasures of the second…”
With His Love ~G
Hey Padi! Missing your great words of wisdom!
Love,
Lori
Post a Comment