The practice of living in spirit rather than in flesh is a genuine impact on our entire living process.  Having this past week just to myself at home with my grandson who is gone most of the time, I was able to see and learn some things about spiritual living.  Of course it is always easier to live a certain way when there is nothing challenging it.  When I picked up the three from the airport yesterday the change was instant.  Now there are others in our life.  Trying not to live in my flesh is not so easy when there is a car full of flesh and then a house of the same.  It is a lot like going to college to learn to teach and then go into a classroom to find that everything you thought you knew just doesn’t take care of 25-35 kids’ needs.  Flesh truly interferes with spirit.

As I was having my devotional time this morning I was reading the first two chapters of Galatians.  Paul is writing to the Christians in Galatia about his confronting Peter about trying to live to please the Jews while with the Gentiles.  Peter was attempting to please man instead of following what Christ had taught him.  I  found myself putting my own behaviors yesterday into that setting.  Paul was seeing Peter living in flesh rather than by God’s Spirit at that moment and he confronted Peter.  Yesterday I found myself overly tempted to live by flesh and respond with flesh.  I would almost instantly sense the difference but would not always respond as though I had.

This morning God was helping me sort through the fullness of spirit living.  The new creation God gave us when Christ was asked into our heart is the beginning of wholeness.  The impact of wholeness is only as complete as our willingness to let God complete His Good Work within us.  This is done by allowing The Holy Spirit to have full voice and me responding to His Voice as He would nudge me.  It seems to come in three different areas of my life:  my work life, my ministry life and my family life.  I’m going to be spending time consciously letting The Holy Spirit awaken me to living in the fullness of Him in me while I move in and out of these three areas.  I do want God to have complete control of me but this will only happen when I am willing to surrender fully, in all areas of my life.  This I want to do.