Who is wise?
Let him understand these things.
Who is prudent?
Let him know them.
For the ways of the Lord are right;
The righteous walk in them
But transgressors stumble in them.
Hosea 14:9
My flesh and mind and heart rebel at
discipline.
I do not want to get up in the
morning,
I do not want to spend my time on
anyone but me.
I do not want to eat properly.
I do not want to go to work.
I do not want to have to make
decisions.
I do not want to be responsible.
I do not want to have choices made
for me.
I do not want to be forced to do
anything.
My flesh mind and heart are full of
rebellion.
God’s word asks who is wise?
Who is prudent?
Then advises that the wise and
prudent person understands and knows that the ways of the Lord are right.
Righteous people walk in them but
that is not the choice of those who live by the flesh.
Our flesh is not evil. It is a
gift from God, created to be used for Him and His glory.
Our will is not evil. It too is
a gift from God and a tool that if yielded to Him He can use to mold us into
His image. Likewise our minds and hearts are not evil, but gifts again
for His glory.
Sometimes I hate that.
Other times I am so grateful that He
gave me the choice and the honor to be able to choose His ways rather than
those that my flesh would choose.
In years past my flesh ruled and I
was subject to it’s demands.
Often I have found myself falling
back into that pattern and I have learned that daily I must take back the
reigns and drive myself towards God.
The trick to doint that, which I
never understood until now is to be so full of God that everything else is so
absolutely trivial as to not matter at all. It makes the choice to follow
Him in submitted discipline quite easy. It is like skipping the veggies
and going right to the desert.
Being full of God is not easy for a
person without discipline. Those of us who were rebels of the 60’s and/or
70’s are now having to live lives we never dreamed we’d live.
We have had to either conform to the
rules of society or be kicked out one way or another.
Discipline was a dirty word back
then. My flesh does not like it.
But as I learn to feed my mind with
Christ and to fill my spirit with the Word and as I submit my will to the
Father I find delight in the discipline of giving myself to Him in devotion
prayer and worship daily.
I never thought I would or even
could form enough of a habit of study to become disciplined to the point of
surrender.
I will to do what He who loves me
desires of me. My heart leads me in response to His love for me, but my
will chooses to follow through and continue to daily give myself to Him by
study and worship and in seeking Him.
In all this my spirit has become
strong and my spirit submitted to Him takes control guiding my thoughts and
actions and causes my flesh to come in line with the will of God.
My flesh is not evil but it would be
if I allowed it to rule. My mind is not evil but it would be if I allowed
it to rule. My heart also is not evil but it would be if I allowed it to
rule.
The only way to flee from the trap
of allowing anything but God to rule is to fill myself up with Him and His Word
and His Spirit to the point that there is nothing else that is important.
This transforms my flesh into the image of my spirit which is becoming Christ
who is in me.
Wisdom is to feed on Christ, attend
to the Spirit, and submit to the Father. It happens from the inside out.
This then allows our flesh, our
mind, and our will to be used for God and His glory.
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