Okay...so that happened. Pay no
attention to the writer as he sneaks back into the room! Seriously
though I do apologize for essentially abandoning the blog for so
long. For those who don't know, I got married back in September.
Unfortunately what with starting a second job and getting used to my
new schedule and all the general craziness that goes along with being
a newlywed I let the blog fall to the wayside. That being said, I'm
back now and I've got some things coming on the horizon!
One thing you'll notice is that the
format will be changing on this blog. I'm going to be relaxing the
structure and shortening the posts and just generally making
everything quicker and more frequent. I feel like that will fit the
title of the blog and my original intentions more than the longer
more thought out articles that I have been doing. I'll still be
posting the occasional poem and I'll even try and do some link
round-ups as well, but in general I'll try and post more but less as
it were.
That being said, I won't be completely
disregarding longer articles. I'm working on starting a second blog
called “Ex-Positional” which will be the new home to my longer
posts and other more serious discussions. I'll make an announcement
here and around the web when I start that project, but for now I will
be adjusting to posting again and doing so more frequently.
Now, with the explanation out of the
way, back to business!
The other day I was listening to a
band called Fireflight (http://fireflightrock.com/),
specifically the song “Stronger Than You Think” off their album
“Now”. I'm not going to go posting a bunch of lyrics but the
point is it got me thinking about personal strength and the spiritual
battle we all face every day. After a few minutes it suddenly dawned
on me that it's not a battle. Really, it's not. The challenge we
face is to either totally crush the enemy in a manner both decisive
and unchallenged, or surrender arms and bow to the dark.
We know that Jesus paid for our sins
on the cross and that payment was accepted by God as evidenced by the
resurrection. We know that our strength comes from God and
specifically the Spirit within us. There are no battles with God.
God doesn't struggle or fight to have his plans succeed, what he says
go's! That's it. No argument, no debate, no formulating possible
alternatives! The lie we all keep believing is that there's chance
that we can fail. I'm not saying we can be perfect, of course not.
When we sin it's not because some cosmic battle has turned in the
enemy's favor, it's because we chose to. Our sin is our choice,
because the flesh is screaming in our head all the time and it's so
often easier to just say “okay, fine whatever,” then to suck it
up, cover your ears, and follow God.
We spend every day in fishbowl of
lies. All around us and inside us are half-truths and straight up
falsehoods paraded as reality. The big lies here are several: You're
not strong enough, that activity really isn't a sin, God's not
watching, and on and on. Sin wants you to think that you can't
resist, but trust me fellow Christian you can! You DO NOT have to listen to your fleshly
impulses! Since the Spirit is an equal member of the Trinity, and as a Christian God has placed His spirit in you, God
Himself is literally residing within you! Think about that! I'm
going to keep using exclamation points until you understand, GOD IS
INSIDE YOU!! He wants you
to succeed, and has given you everything you need to do just that!
So stop couching your repentance prayers in language that makes you
look better or hedges your doubt about God. Stop saying you failed,
or you slipped, or messed up. You chose
to sin, and the sooner we can admit to that and repent -really
repent- the sooner we can move on and give our lives for Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment