"Do you, boo" used to be my slogan. My thing. I figured that, hey, if someone wanted to do something with his/her life - they got it. Who am I to tell a grown a** person what to do?
But the more I delved into the Word and spent time with God, the more I realized that condoning people in living according to their selfish desires is NO BUENO - yeah, it's your life, but it's not always ABOUT you. As followers of Christ, our fruits are exhibited based on our decisions to submit to either our flesh or to the Spirit in our daily walks. Our lives are literally the representation of Christ in this world each day. WOW. Can you imagine if someone decided whether or not to accept Jesus into his/her heart based on the way you - a follower of Christ - behaved toward them. Oh, wait - people do! If you are the only slice of Jesus someone sees each day but you cuss them out when they say something you don't agree with or you snap at them when you get irritated or you gossip to them about someone else, what part of Jesus are you showing them?? The wrong way to respond to sin is with sin. You respond with GRACE because that's what we, as Believers, are strong enough, wise enough to do in this life. And, most importantly, it is ONLY by God's Grace that we were saved by Christ Jesus. Who are we to not extend the same grace extended to us? I talk about "denying my flesh" a lot in my other posts, which may just sound like I'm abstaining from giving in to sexual desires, but it doesn't just end there. Denying your flesh means making a conscious decision to CHOOSE things that are of the Spirit. The Fruits of the Spirit (outlined in Galatians 5:22-26) are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Choosing the Spirit each day, each moment is a battle won against sin. It's a battle won against evil. Y'all, this life is merely a whole bunch of situations in which we make choices. Profound - I know. But forreal. It's: "Should I respond to his insult sweetly or do I need to show him who's boss?" Choose kindness. "Should I continue this argument, or should I just let it go?" Choose peace. "Should I join my friend in a 'petty party' and talk trash or should I change the subject and turn away from gossip?" Choose goodness. Guys, there aren't levels to our Christian lives. You can't be lukewarm to being a follower of Christ. You can't let some sins be "okay" and other sins be the ones from which you abstain. It's all in. It's a lifestyle. Better yet - it's a NEW LIFE. It's a CULTURE. A lot of people ask why God let's bad things happen in this world. They say, "If God is all-powerful, why does He let someone go into a church and murder people? Why does He let such terrible, evil things happen?" I don't have an answer for everything. But one thing I do know is that this world is not merely struggles of man against man. Flesh against flesh. We are not just a bunch of humans fighting one another. Instead, it says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Y'all - each of your choices has repercussions in the spiritual realm. Your decision to choose peace, kindness and love over strife, anger and evil makes a difference in people's lives, in people's spirits. That guy who killed people in a church chose to be led by an evil spirit to do so. Those families who forgave that killer for murdering their loved ones chose a spirit of forgiveness, of love to do so. It's not that God doesn't have the power to stop things from happening. He does. But He also has given us this thing called FREEDOM. God loves us SO MUCH He let's us make decisions for ourselves. He lets us choose evil or choose Him. He lets us choose sin/flesh or choose the Spirit. That's why things happen the way they do in this life. Life is all about choices. I was watching a sermon by John Piper a few nights ago, and he mentioned something I knew I had to include in this post. He said, "All people hate suffering. Most people don't hate sin." Drops mic. He also went on to say that, "Life is a FIGHT of faith and a war on sin... The corpse that is sin is always after you trying to kill you." In short - you're ALWAYS going to be fighting sin (the flesh). No matter how close you are to God. No matter how great you think you're doing at denying your flesh. Sin will always be trying to creep its way back into your life. Evil always wants you to succumb to it. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:18-19 that those who don't know God "are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” Upon looking up the definitions of sensuality and sensitivity (I thought it was odd they were juxtaposed like this, don't they mean like the same thing? Nope!) I found that sensuality means "the condition of being pleasing or fulfilling to the senses" while sensitivity is synonymous with responsiveness, consideration, care, thoughtfulness, empathy. Get this - when we give in to desires of the flesh, when we focus solely on our OWN flesh, we can't feel others. It's as if you can only feel your own desires and needs; you can't experience and empathize with the world the way God has called us to. Going back to my boy John -- when we are in Christ, we CRUCIFY those fleshly, sinful desires. That corpse of sin that tries to come after us needs to be KILLED daily (Galatians 5:24) if we are to win this battle called life. It's not easy, y'all! Do you know how many times each day I have to call on the Spirit of Shut-Up (thanks, Heather) to not tell someone how I really feel but to show God's love instead? It's painful sometimes, but it's NECESSARY. You never know what kinds of spiritual bombs you're setting off or, conversely, detonating with your responses to others. If you're still with me (TLDR version), this post can essentially be summed up by this verse: “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:8-9 I love y'all! PLEASE keep it up! #ChoosePeaceChallenge: For 30 days (and hopefully for the rest of your life) I want you to #ChoosePeace in your daily lives. Just as I mentioned, people are frustrating! But instead of giving in to the flesh and telling them how you really feel, #ChoosePeace. Write down each time you do it and then later reflect on how it made you feel. You'll thank yourself (and God) for it! Musical pairings: "Good, Good Father" - Casting Crowns "Give Me Faith" - Elevation Worship "For Your Glory" - Tasha Cobbs - L
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"But, God, You aren't my only desire."
Let’s be real - we all have been here. Let me be real - I was there last week. It was too early, I was too tired, and my little raggedy self felt like, “God should understand - I’m sleepy, and I’ll get my time in later.” As if time spent with Him is doing Him a favor and not us. But why isn’t He our only desire? As I was led to write this blog, that question was literally all I could ask Him. Why, God? Why aren’t You our only desire? How, sway? How? When You are the One Who gives it all, haves it all and sent someone to die to cover us. Why wouldn’t we want You and just You? As I type this, the word I hear is “disbelief." We don’t really believe in the God Who has done it all for us and Who continues to do it all for us. We don’t really trust Him. We only trust in the things we can see. We can see the type of house we want, we can see the type of shorty we are attracted to, and we can see what having more money does for us. We are religious, we are lazy, and we love our parents' God. We don’t give anything to God. We don’t sacrifice nothing for Him. We only care about ourselves and our own selfish desires, which have nothing to do with no one else. We live in our own little imaginary boxes where the things we desire mean more to us than any “move of God." Yeah, sure - we want the move of God in our lives, but only if it works out in our favor. And some of us don’t even peep that we desire other things more than we desire God. “I get up every morning and spend time with God.” We take pride in our little 45 second prayer, 2-minute devotional book and 140-character Instagram caption. "How dare you, Ariel? How dare you judge my time with God!" I don’t mean to rain on your parade, shorty, but that’s not enough. We are called for so much more, and the only way we can get more is to give up ourselves. The only way we can desire more of Him is by submerging ourselves in His presence. What you feed grows; what you starve dies. Bruh, we are called to heal the sick, raise the dead, touch the untouchables and cast out demons (Matthew 10:8). Your 15 minutes a day with Him ain’t going to do nothing but make you feel good about yourself. And that’s our problem - we are so caught up on HOW WE FEEL. That’s why we desire things other than God, which means we desire other things more than God. So, what does your heart look like? What does your life look like? Show me your life and your daily choices, and I’ll tell you what your heart looks like and where it lies. Matthew 6:21 tells us, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Are you procrastinating on what God is telling you to do because you'd rather watch television? Do you repeatedly press snooze in the morning, missing your quiet time with God because you're sleepy? Do you worry instead of pray? Do you ignore the ways out of temptation that God gives you and choose sin? Are you choosing yourself, him/her, this/that and not HIM? One of my friends did a bomb message titled “F*** yo life” teaching from the Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” He said, “the GREATEST human achievement is finding God.” Proverbs 8:35-36 tells us, “When you find Me, you find life, real life, and receive favor from the Lord. But if you don’t find Me, you damage your very soul, when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.” Whew. Flirting with death? "So, Ariel, are you saying we can’t desire anything?" Nah, I am not saying that at all. We were created to have desires, and we are created to have what we desire. But let’s desire ALL of God FIRST. Let’s give up ourselves and allow Him to place His desires in our hearts. Many times, our desires aren’t even the desires He has for our lives, but if we sit before Him long enough, His desires become our desires. Psalms 37:4: “Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” That scripture tells us He will GIVE us the desires of our heart once we delight in Him. Which means we really don’t even have real desires if they aren’t given to us by Him. Like, they are just useless ideas and like the wind outside. It may make us a bit chilly, move stuff around and sometimes mess some things up if not stable enough (haaa), but it has no real significance. You ever try to chase wind? Let’s get this straight. Apart from God, you can do nothing! Nada! Zilch! You can’t produce anything, you can’t receive anything, you can’t even see properly. He is the Source. He is the main thang sha-bang. For you to even have a desire worth something, you MUST be connected to Him. “I am the vine: you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” – John 15:15 Meditate on that for two hot seconds. N-O-T-H-I-N-G! Let’s not be like the Israelites and doubt the desires God has for us leading us on a “forty year” detour to the promised land. Our own selfish desires will leave us in a wilderness season way longer than God intended. Anything you desire more than God or other than God (which is the same thing) will lead you into straight up destruction. His desires for our lives are far better than what we have planned. Desiring something other than Him or more than Him isolates us from Him. “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world --- wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important ---- has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out --- but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.” – 1 John 2:15 I encourage you to chase after God's desires and walk into your eternity. I love you, foreal! Xo - A |
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