Do Not Forget: Part Two

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." Galatians 5:16-17 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24 In the last post, 'Do Not Forget', God reminded me just how often I place other things and other people in front of Him. In writing that post, He refreshed my mind and heart in knowing how involved He wants to be in every aspect of my life... if I would just spend time with Him. As Christians, we know this. But, why is it so difficult for us to do this? Why do we find ourselves failing over and over again to spend more time with God? Thankfully, God gives us the answer in the following post. Part 2 begins... Have you ever been on a diet? I don't like diets because I don't do well on them. You know why? I don't like to NOT eat stuff that taste good! :-) Diets mess with my mind, I think. When I know I can't have something, it makes me want to eat it even more! I can be full up to my eyeballs and Canaan will leave a couple of chicken nuggets and you know what? I eat them!!! Why? Why? Why? The answer is lack of self-control (yep, I don't want God to go here any more than you do). But before I can use it in my eating, I must learn to use it in my spiritual life first. Self-control. Not a great topic for us but a necessary one, according to our Lord. This past month, God has opened up my heart to focusing on the fruit of the spirit. He began working with me on self-control. At first, I was confused by this because self-control is the last fruit of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:23. But the more I learned, the more I realized this is the key in strengthening my relationship with God and that's why I needed to begin here. In Galatians 5:16-18, Paul tells us that, as Christians, we must be led by the Holy Spirit. If we are not, we will gratify our own desires, which are sinful. Several places in the Bible, we find Jesus saying that we must 'deny' our self in order to follow Him. Deny, by definition, means 'to restrain oneself from gratification of desires'. I began to think about that and I realized that there is very little that I 'restrain myself' from to follow Christ. What do I deny myself from or when do I exercise self-control with God? God sacrificed His son so that you and I can have a home in Heaven. He wants to be close to me and only asks for my time; Time to worship Him and praise Him before I do something I want to do; Time to ask Him for forgiveness for hurting Him before I need to go somewhere I want to go; Time to offer up my burdens that HE asked me to bring to Him before I spend my time with the very people He put in my life. That, my friends, is simply nothing for me to sacrifice or to deny myself. So, a closer walk with God, (going from an introduction to an intimate friendship) has alot to do with self-control. We must exercise self-control in putting Him first. This is difficult, I know. But God's word tells us that it is difficult because what we want and what God wants is contrary to each other (makes sense of why it's hard sometimes to do the right thing). God tells us we will feel this controversy, but we must choose Him. We can't afford to have distance between us and God, so this is extremely important. When we want to watch TV to wind down at night, we must go to God first. When we want to eat in the morning or get ready, we should spend the time with Him first. I hope you will join me in thinking about your day and night and finding ways to deny our self something in order to put Him above our wants and desires. If you are a Christian (meaning, you have accepted Christ into your heart as Lord and Savior), and you feel that there is distance between you and God, this is the way to close the gap. 1 John 1:5-6 says, "...this is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." Well, if there is one thing we know Jesus did, it was to spend time with the Father. He made time. Spending time with God was everything to Jesus. It must be everything to us. We will set the DVR or rush home early to prevent missing our favorite show. But, seldom do we deny ourselves or move something or someone out of our way if it threatens to come between the time we have with our Lord. I hope that you and I will exercise that necessary fruit of the spirit: self-control. If we do this, we will 'not forget' Him. If we are tempted to do something else when God is prompting our hearts to spend time with Him, may we remember Calvary... enough said. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I want to be close with you. I hate when there is distance between us. And most of all, I hate that I caused the distance. I want to put you ahead of everyone and everything in my life. You have given so much for me. Help me to use this precious gift of self-control in every aspect of my life. i praise and honor you for my every heart beat and my every breath. May I live my life for you alone.