There are some points about living life for Christ that should be “no brainers”, but I keep finding new tidbits that I awaken to which surprise me that I didn’t already live knowing them. I am talking about the selfishness of sin.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about a 90 day commitment I’ve challenged some men to do about addressing their addiction/s. I have been taking myself through this book/devotional also having started it a couple of weeks ahead of them so I could be sure I’m recommending a sound piece of work. There is no question in my mind regarding the book’s soundness. It is one I’d recommend to anyone. Each day one commits to sobriety for 24 hours and prays to God for His Holy Spirit’s strength and then connects to his accountability person giving him the same commitment one gave to God. He then initials the commitment and dates it.

Yesterday afternoon was a time of struggle/battle for me. As I was journaling about it this morning God showed me what I started to write about: the selfishness of sin. The battle of porn I’ve always connected to my brother’s sexual use of me for so many years. However, this morning as I was journaling God pointed out that yesterday’s struggle was my own. It may have begun from sexual use in my childhood years, but the current struggle is my choice. My eyes had turned from Him to the potential lust of sin. It was there I needed to make a decision–my choice. Of course I’ve known this for MANY years, but the reality of it this morning sunk in as my struggle within the 24 hours. I decided whether I would step in or turn away and put my eyes on God surrendering the struggle to the Holy Spirit within me. Seeing this selfishness within me (that is part of my flesh) was powerfully effective. The last thing in the world I want to look like is selfish. Boy, do I love this God we get to serve! He truly is THE TEACHER!

Today my younger brother and I are the same age until my birthday July 1. We get to be twins for almost two months! That’s always been a family joke.

I’ve had 4 new people start counseling this week. Each one has had a very unique story filled with a great deal of consternation and strife. In each case they are close to their “wits end”. This morning I was reflecting on these with God when He instantly reminded me of the line Celebrate Recovery uses--“God takes our mess and turns it into His message.” I needed to hear this from Him. It makes Faith, Trust and Hope come to life when I remember this truth.

The amazing thing about what God does with our mess when we allow Him into it is He begins to remove the torment. God takes what has been tormenting us and turns it into relief as we release our hold on it and give the hold to Him. Learning how to shift my own past from my expectations to God’s expectations has been nothing but humbling and amazing. It is such a delight to watch God now do this for others!

My devotional today told a story that truly resembles living life each day as a believer in Jesus Christ. He told of swimming in an area of the Mediterranean Sea where riptides were prevalent. He was a youth and strong swimmer so he wasn’t concerned. When he noticed he had been caught in a riptide he simply began to swim against it only to be towed further into the sea. It was then he remembered to swim parallel to the pull until the pull dissipated. That was when he could swim back to shore. In telling this story he compared the riptide to our flesh which pulls us daily into desires of the flesh unless we know not to fight the pull “of our own flesh”. We always lose and get pulled further into the sinfulness of our flesh when we fight of our own strength. We have to use our spiritual wisdom and choose to not fight it but use the wisdom God provides in His Word for fighting temptations which lead to sin.

I have fought my own sinfulness on my own for such a long time that I had thought Paul’s message to us in Romans that “we do what we don’t want to do….” Romans 7:15, was a curse that could never be broken until death. However, putting into place the wisdom God provides us about seeking Him, surrendering ourselves and telling someone we trust will allow us to do the swimming parallel until we are out of the riptide’s pull. Then, we are free to swim to shore. Amazing wisdom!

Yesterday had some challenging moments in it which not so long ago would have led to intense temptations to “give comfort”. I’ve lived for years with Satan’s lies coming at me telling me that comfort is just a tap of my phone away. Of course if I followed his temptation I would then find myself steeped in the guilt and shame that followed. This was not the case yesterday. The challenging moments were followed with surrender and processing with God.

In years past I wouldn’t allow my emotions to be felt so I’d stuff them. Emotions were something that caused my dad to explode with abusive actions and words. I would never allow myself to do that so I couldn’t feel or else I might be “like dad”. God has certainly brought me to a different place today. He wants me to feel emotion and to acknowledge that they are real and have purpose. Yesterday’s emotions were first felt. As I processed them with God He gave me words to express them. He even gave me words to understand the purpose of them.

It seems odd now to look at the day yesterday and find that living in the flesh, as we all do, coupled with God’s Spirit allows us to not let the flesh own us. The flesh we have was never created to be sinful, and we don’t have to choose sin today no matter what the circumstances. Wow, God is AMAZING!

Have you ever noticed how faith, trust, hope and words of this nature grow in importance and understanding as we continue in our walk with God? My devotional today brought this out with great clarity. When I compared what these looked like to me when I was in my young years, they were words that I used to get through my childhood. When I left home for college and then started my life of “independence”, I found I needed to continue to use them. When I was in my childhood I thought getting through it would give me freedom. However, when I got to college I found I had the bondage of my childhood so I shifted my faith, trust and hope to the “freedom of living” with no one knowing. As life went on I found that this way of living had its own punishment. It turned into nightly nightmares and withdrawing from social gatherings and more.

Freedom comes from sharing and learning how as James 5:16 tells us. The sharing needs to be with someone you trust because that is when we begin to truly heal for the prayers of who we tell are “powerful and effective” as this verse tells us. So, how does simply telling one’s story give freedom? Well, it starts with faith, trust and hope in what God’s Word tells us and He then performs His miracles of healing. We can never know this if we don’t take the first step and then the next, and then the next….

God is Amazingly Wonderful when we start this journey of obedience to His Word.

Well, the pots are done and their beauty has only begun. I will enjoy watching the young plants as they grow into their fullness and provide the beauty intended. Somehow I think there is a metaphor in this. God plants His Holy Spirit within us as we accept His Son Jesus into our lives to be our Savior and Lord. However, if we do not water and nurture this new life it will stay dormant until we do.

Knowing the truth of God’s promises is the start of a glorious relationship with Him. Believing these truths for oneself is the next great step. Disciplining oneself to build the relationship with God through worship, reading His Word and prayer are the nutrients of this growth. At some point in time the discipline one needed to use to start the relationship turns into a desire/a passion that never feels like a discipline at all. The outcome??? JOY–sheer JOY!

Have I ever written here that I love the springtime? Well, if I haven’t, know that I do! Today I will begin planting the deck pots. It brings great joy to my heart planting them and then watering and watching their beauty until fall’s frost finally brings them to an end. Life is beautiful when you’re a flower!

There are somethings in our lives that speak to our spirit. Gardening is a spirit thing for me. Grandkids are another spirit speaker. Music–gospel and classical are spirit speakers for me. This counseling program is another unexpected spirit speaker for me. In fact, spending 50 years in education was a spirit speaker for me. These things I write about are never seen as work, but things I get to do and experience. Each one of us has somethings which speak to our spirit and we treasure them.

God is Himself Spirit. Faith, Trust, Hope, Assurance are all examples of solid rock in God’s Spirit world. He wants you and me to live in this confidence with Him. Awakening to the beauty of God’s Spirit is nothing less than AMAZING to a man of flesh. If we try to see spirit through the lens of the flesh we only see a mystery–confusion–question marks. However, seeing Spirit through spirit we see Hope, we find Trust building, we discover Faith which leads to Confidence and we find ourselves moving forward with a JOY we’ve never known before!

There is a point I’ve been trying to make clear (for me) for readers that I still haven’t done very well. In the past couple of days I’ve hit upon God being I AM (a name He gave Himself during the time of Moses). God is the same yesterday, today and forever so He still is I AM. The only place I AM fits is when one is in today.

Yesterday I wrote about finding God in the days of abuse which were my past. In therapy I was enabled to bring the abuse of my past to the present–the today. It was then I was able to let God be in scene with me clarifying for me who the abuser was, who the abused was and where God was in this troubling time. It was also here that God made it very clear that the gift of choice which He gave mankind could also be turned into a curse when man chooses to use choice selfishly.

The GREAT I AM can and will help us when we are able to let Him enter into our troubled pasts–today. Because of God’s Grace and Mercy, today I am free from my past’s bondage. Will I ever be anxious? Well, yes, but as soon as I allow God to enter into the scene in my mind that triggers the anxiety, I can surrender it and find that promised PEACE which passeth all understanding!

This morning as I’ve reread yesterday’s post I am prompted to add a piece which didn’t hit me until today. The name God gave himself when He was dealing with Moses and the Israelites was I AM. I’ve heard many, many times over the years that this name God has given Himself testifies to the truth that God is in our present–today. In the flesh we can only live in the present so God is telling us to keep our minds in today for that is where we will find Him.

When I was in counseling (not so many years ago), one of the most grueling things for me was reliving so many times of abuse: sexual, physical and verbal. What became healing during this process was finding God in them by understanding that when God gave man choice, man chose this behavior–not God. The abuse was entirely about man’s choice–the abuse of God giving us choice. I didn’t own anything about the abuse. Only then was I able to finally let the sins I thought I carried due to the abuse–go. They were not mine to carry, they had been done to me, not committed by me.

When you realize God is I AM, we need to go back and find God’s I AM presence in our past when we are locked into a lie thinking God had abandoned us. This GREAT I AM is in each and every day we have lived and will be in each and every day we will live. The bondage of sin is the absence of finding God in that time and taking whatever steps need to be taken to let God into the time. Sometimes it is letting the the abuser own all that they did. Sometimes we have to confess a part we may have had. Whatever is needed, we can take the appropriate steps to let God be in it. Helping others do this today is such a wonderful, humbling privilege!

Have you ever questioned a biblical, scriptural truth? When I was in high school and the sexual use of me was still taking place with the one older brother, I was reading I Corinthians 10:13. It says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” At the time I knew this verse was given as a promise of God–TRUTH. However, it never seemed true for me. It became one of the reasons I thought God just didn’t care much for me which led to me thinking I was more than an oops of mom and dad. I was also God’s mistake and I would have to earn my way back to Him.

In my recent years I’ve become very grounded in the truth of this verse. I’ve certainly learned that my temptations are common to man. But, more than that I’ve learned just how God never did let me be tempted beyond what I could bear. In all of the times during my life when temptations and life’s realities seemed overwhelming and all consuming, I lived through them and became a better person for doing so thanks be to God,

So, today I read Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The critical truth in growing in my walk with God has been learning to live by FAITH and unlearning to live by flesh. As I do this I find the truth of my flesh being crucified with Christ. I can claim this truth as a Sword of the Spirit when temptations come.