Monday, November 30, 2009

Word to your mother.

Like my silly title?

Ok, for reals...God is soo good!! I had a great great Thanksgiving. Got to see Lindsay (cousin who goes to school at Liberty in Virginia), and got to see my mom's cousin, Jackie, and Jackie's new husband (from Maine!) and all the rest of my mom's side of the family in the glorious Cleveland, TX.

We had a fun time hanging out...played Cowboy Golf, watched football, made homemade cards, ate, ate some more, went to a Stoney LaRue concert in Spring, and went shopping. I am saying no to pie until Christmas!

Church on Sunday was good. I like their pastor. He's bold! He said that usually by the second worship song in a church service, he's like a caged animal; he keeps it in because he doesn't want to freak anybody out or make anyone think he's Pentecostal. I just laughed and thought about all the "freak" expressions of worship that abound at my church. People don't hold back, that's for sure.

He gave a statistic that only 5% of Baptists will ever lead a person to the Lord in their lifetime. I don't know how accurate that is, but I'm sure it's in the right ballpark. That's kind of crazy. He said he knows a lot of us in the audience think that that's only the pastor's job, or the music minister's job...but then he said we are ALL ON THE HOOK. While many of us, (myself included), are afraid to share our faith with people, the reasons for not doing it are almost always FEAR-related. The pastor reminded us that when we step out in obedience, we have no reason to let fear stop us, because God is WITH US. He's working on the heart of the person, so there is no magic in our words. He doesn't call us to do these things in our own strength. The key thing is to make sure we are focused on him and listening to his spirit as we speak out.

God challenged me with this in my quiet time this morning:

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature."
(Galatians 5:16)

LIVE BY THE SPIRIT. Seems to be an impossible command, especially when coupled with having to reject the desires of the flesh. Almost as impossible as "Be perfect, for I am perfect." Yet, when God gives these commands, he has most certainly not called us to do something that we are incapable of accomplishing (with his help).

Could the spirit of God really encompasses every avenue of my life? Well, I am certainly NOT holy!! However, the holy one lives in me. I like what Joy Dawson says about this process: "If we choose to walk in obedience to revealed truth and the next thing He tells us to do, His holy life will start to be manifest through us (no matter how unholy we are now, or how impossible it may seem for us to become holy)."

By the way the scripture is worded, the order is not to find Life, then go searching for the Spirit in Life. I need to find the SPIRIT first, and then every part of my Life flows out of that place.

So that's my challenge this week: to LIVE BY THE SPIRIT. Feel free to join me in it.

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