Who has control?

Romans 8:6 (NIV)

The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace

 

 

For years I have had the mind of a sinful man. It permeates my being and I am saturated with it. Now that I know the truth there is quarrel between it and the sinful side of me. The arrows from the evil one once wounded me deeply. God has reveled to me three specific wounds which and I now have scripture to counter what was learned from those wounds. They are healed inside of me but the damage done is still being weeded out of who I am. 

Those wounds taught me how the world works and how I needed to respond to the world in order to keep me from being hurt again. My relational style had been built on lies. I was a sinful man with a sinful mind and was experiencing death. 

Not anymore though. Now that I have received the Holy Spirit I am in training. I am learning how to let my mind be controlled by the spirit. The battle is in fighting the old thought patterns that have developed and along with that battle there is the fight with the old habits that coincide with those thought patterns. 

When you accept Jesus as your lord and savior you receive the Holy Spirit. It does dwell inside of us now. Many of us though, still need to surrender to the idea that we have been chosen. 

You see, I struggled with believing that God chose to make me, to create me, to teach me and to show me His ways. He made me to love and beloved by him. What is absolutely humbling is truth that he also wants to father me. He chooses to work though the Holy Spirit, if I choose to live according to it.

How does one live life according to the spirit? Living according to the spirit means that I now should be drawn to pleasure by the things of the spirit and not the things of the world. It isn’t an easy process but God has already done the work for us. He is revealing himself to you though the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to have head knowledge of His truths but another to live there. What we really need is to put that truth to work in our lives, we have to practice living in the truth. 

Just like learning to walk when we were young. We couldn’t always walk; it was something that we needed to learn. We had to find our balance, and then we had to practice to build up our strength in our legs. We needed help, we needed someone to hold us up at first, and then we needed encouragement to not give up and to keep trying.

I have found that, even with things going well in my life, I still find myself down; experiencing sorrow and melancholy at times. When I lived according to the world I was so lost I didn't even know my own name. Those feelings were something I experienced everyday. I got comfortable with experiencing those feelings. It had become a habit. We seem to get stuck in our old way of thinking.....it happens right? Consider this quote from a friend of mine.

 "We are more comfortable in our uncomfortableness and more satisfied in our unsatisfactory state within ourselves—than we are enthralled and thankful and surrendered at His greatness and willingness to do just what He says He will do and be just Who He says He will be!"

That was me for sure. For me I can be down for a bit unaware of why I am down. When I do realize that I am down a conversation starts in my head...

I like to think that it is the Holy Spirit speaking life inside of me.

“HEY! Why are you down again? What is troubling you now?”

The Holy Spirit is challenging me to take my thoughts and hold them up to the truth. When I do the truth begins to sprout in my soul so I respond.

"Well....nothing is wrong....my life is good right now....there are no major stressors occurring."

And when I realize that I am again, believing in those lies, I am freed. Didn't Jesus tell us that we shall know the truth and it would set us free?!

In these times I am seeing that I am just so used to "something" being wrong it has become a habitual way of thinking or being. Sadness, melancholy....was just my accepted level of happiness. We all have the capability to accept a certain level of misery consider it happiness. This is as good as it is going to get. I was more comfortable there so it felt like home but that is not where I should be. 

My friends don’t buy into that. We were meant for so much more.

I say these things to prep this.

One of the best feelings that I have ever experienced is the realization that all is well with my soul. That God, in His glory, is fathering ME and I am OK. I am free of all that old stuff, that old way of thinking so I can just let go of my sadness and melancholy as it is nothing more than a lie from the evil one. When I turn my back on those old thought patterns I am choosing to live in the spirit. I am choosing to receive that truth from the Holy Spirit. It just washes over me like someone has dumped warm oil over my head and it just permeates my body (and soul) with its warmth.

I am convinced it is His love and I shiver......

In that moment I am recognizing the second part of Romans 8:6 …. the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace

I want that for you for I know first hand that God is faithful. He didn't give up on me and he won’t give up on you. He keeps pursuing us with His annoying love. It is always there, it has always been there, and will always be there.  There is nothing that we can do to separate ourselves from that love. Even in our own depravity and wretchedness He reaches down his hand every time we trip and fall. His patience is never ending; time and time again he fathers us like many parents do teaching their kids how to walk.

"Now ( insert your name here), come on, get up and try again, YOU can do it! I will teach you how to walk in my ways." AND in those times where I just couldn't do it anymore, He just carried me. Now I am walking on my own, more and more....nah, now I am learning to run...I still fall, but I get back up quicker than before. So can you!

The Holy Spirit is what guides us. The Holy Spirit is our encourager, and at times the one who reminds us that all is well and we need to simply get our thoughts focused on the reality of the truth of where we are now. We are IN him, we are with him and he is with us. We are a part of the vine.

 Let me leave you with this verse and a closing thought.

Romans 15:13 NIV

May the God of hope fill you with  all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Paul prays that God may FILL you with joy and peace in believing that he is faithful and by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. But you see, YOU have to choose what you get filled with. It is only God’s desire to fill you with these wonderful things though the choice is really yours. You can choose whatever you wish to be filled with but you only have two choices: 

1) What the world offers

or 

2) What God offers

You choose by what you surround yourself with. What are you choosing today?

Here is an old Cherokee Legend that was shared with me years ago. It is a good story that summarizes this week’s “Deep in the Week”.