I walked home tonight, thinking, “All I need to do is wake up, be faithful for one day and go to bed. If I do that one time every day for the rest of my life, I will have completed life as a success.” I used to think if there was one thing written on my grave stone, I would want it to say, “She was teachable.” Tonight I told God, I think I would like to be known for my faith. “She was faithful.”
I was a grump today until about an hour before CR. CR was really good. I cannot say but that I am really thankful God gave someone that idea! I think the biggest reason I am grumpy right now is because God has been giving me a real close look at my own sinful nature. Ever since He had that conversation with me about bitterness, I find the look into my own heart really disturbing.
Then I have been listening to a series on Rick Warren’s Daily Hope podcast about the eight principles. He talks about how all the struggles we have in life are not really with ourselves or people, they are with God. We just perceive they are with ourselves or people around us. Yes, that is very true. All my problems in my life right now come from me trying to be God. Me wanting to change situations I cannot. Me not liking what God asks me to do. Me kind of wishing He had called me to something easier.
But He did not, so here I am. I will wake up, be faithful for one day, and go back to bed. He requires nothing else. I can control almost nothing anyway. Least of all the people around me. I should just quit trying to control anything. Surrender!
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. – Romans 7:18-8:1
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