Daily Details

 

I have 1001 details to attend to every single day - well, that may be a slight exaggeration. At times, I feel like I am drowning in them. They wash over me and force me down into their depths.

As a young adult, I learned to make lists of my daily details every night before I went to bed. This helped me to stop thinking about them, so that my mind would shut off and I could fall asleep quicker.

I prioritized them and made sure that I had everything staged to achieve them as quickly and efficiently as possible. The next day, I crossed the chores off the list as I accomplished them.

I felt a sense of fulfillment and pride as the list got shorter by the hour. However, there were always items left on the list at the end of the day. Therefore, I added the new details to them that night and prioritized them for the next day.

My life was ruled by those lists, except when unexpected interruptions caused me to abandon the index and deal with that issue before referring back to my detailed catalogue of chores.

As I learned to walk in the Spirit, I continued to make the list, but not to prioritize the items. I listened to the Spirit and checked off the chores as He led me to deal with them. The list got shorter much quicker that way.

Over the years, I stopped making the lists altogether. I learned to listen to the Spirit each moment of the day and to obey His prompting for each one of them. I found that I accomplished more during the day than ever before.

Sometimes, God's Spirit would lead me to do several things at once, and also point out to me details that I would have forgotten to jot down on my list. I went to bed at night with my mind clear and no agenda hovering over me to control my next day.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for the leading of Your Holy Spirit, which keeps us in the center of Your will through the mundane moments of our daily life. Sometimes, I still get overwhelmed by the magnitude of details that are my responsibility in a short day's time; and as I age, they bother me more often. However, thank You for freeing me from the demon of perfectionism, and for helping me to simplify my life by forsaking the details that are actually not important.

Now, I can expect less of me and more from You. You work out even the tiniest issues and the most challenging details by Your Spirit, and You often do this without any help from me. You are amazing, God, and I thank You for adopting me into Your family and giving me the privileges as Your child in both this world and the next.

Thought for the Day:

There are no more unexpected interruptions in my day, because I learned to expect the unexpected as I follow the Spirit's guidance throughout each moment; accomplishing more than mere human effort could ever produce, I experienced the wonder of His work in and through me. 

- Proverbs 3:5-6

The Purpose of LIfe

As authentic Christians, we now live by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Our transformation rests firmly on the rock of the gospel of Christ through His Holy Spirit (Romans 12:2; Psalm 18:2).

We live by His faith in love, filled with the fruit of and following the leading of God’s Spirit on a moment-by-moment basis (Galatians 5:1; 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:18).

We no longer strive to earn God’s love or to live a holy life. We simply walk in obedience. We live on earth to glorify our Father, not by our own human efforts, but only by the power of Christ within us.

Jesus loves us so much, that for our benefit he gave Himself up to the horrific death on Calvary’s cross. Through His sacrifice, we are now acceptable to God in Christ (1 Peter 2:5; Romans 15:7).

We have been crucified with Christ. Therefore, it is no longer we who live our life, but Christ, the Messiah, who lives in and through us.

The life that we now live in our body on this earth, we live by faith in, devotion to, dependence on and complete confidence in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20, Amplified Bible).

Jesus is our only hope of experiencing God’s glory (Colossians 1:27). We could never be good enough in our human effort to earn a place in Heaven (Ephesians 2:8-10).

We completely surrender our plans, goals and will to God’s will for our life and we live in perfect union with Christ. Our old sinful nature is crucified with Christ, and sin has no more power over our choices.

Prayer:

Father God, You planned, before You ever created the earth, for Jesus to give up His glory in Heaven, to take the form of a man, to humble Himself and to willingly die in our place (Philippians 2:8). You call us to follow in His example and to die to our humanity as well, exchanging our sinful desires for His righteousness.

Now, by Your Spirit's power within us, we can put on the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5). Therefore, because of Your mercy and grace, we will no longer succumb to the negative suggestions of our carnal nature, but we live a life that is free from the destructive consequences of sin (Romans 12:2; Galatians 5:16).

Thought for the Day:

We renew our mind by reading God's Word and walking in continual obedience to His Holy Spirit.

- Ephesians 5:26; John 14:15

Fruitastic Personality

The Holy Spirit moves into our life at justification - when we repent of our sins and ask Jesus to save us from the penalty of them. He brings with Him the power, nature and fruit of God's character.

His fantastic fruit will replace our carnal nature and make us a new creation (Romans 6:22). However, the weeds of sin, the world and the devil will rob the soil of our life and starve the spiritual fruit, preventing it from growing.

It is our choice to allow or to hinder this from happening. Negative emotions will crowd out His fruit by dominating our thoughts and preventing God's Word from germinating (2 Timothy 3:2; Romans 1:30).

It seems to be easier to grow the weeds of sin than the fruit of the Spirit; but as we surrender our will and all of our human effort to God's Spirit, it becomes unpleasant to sin and joyful to walk in holiness (1 John 2:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

We discover that God's Spirit replaces hatred with love, discontentment with peace, irritation with patience, criticism with gentleness, backbiting with goodness, worry with faith, pride with meekness, and depression with true joy, as we are controlled and guided by Him.

What do these fruit actually mean to our life and personality? His love gives us affection for others; joy produces an exuberance in us for life; peace conveys a deep abiding serenity; patience provides us with the willingness to persevere.

Gentleness exudes compassion from our heart; goodness radiates kindness which pervades our entire being; faith comes from experiencing God's faithfulness; meekness makes us humble in our service to our King. 

When God's Spirit guides us each moment of the day, we have self-control in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23). It is a bit overwhelming to think of changing all of these attitudes in our life at one time. 

Actually, the Holy Spirit changes us from one stage of glory to the next, a little at a time, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

We end up with a fruitastic personality; and we can share God's fruit throughout our lifetime with everyone we will ever meet. We will develop into a wonderful example of the love of God in an individual's life.

Prayer:

Father God, our old nature prevents Your fruit from growing in our life. Help us to lay aside those negative emotions and character traits, which so easily weigh us down and to allow Your Spirit to transform our life (Hebrews 12:1). 

Thank You for helping us to focus on the positive viewpoint in Your Word whenever negative thoughts assail us (Philippians 4:8). Help us to meditate on Your Word day and night as Your Spirit gives us the mind of Christ to replace the negative attitudes which come from Satan, the world and the flesh. 

Show us the root of every negative thought, feeling and outlook, so that we can surrender it to You immediately. This will prevent us from adopting a negative, complaining, stressed, depressed or grouchy attitude. Thank You for delivering us from our self.

Thought for the Day:

We can write verses pertaining to one fruit at a time and post them in obvious places where we spend time: like the bathroom mirror or kitchen window or refrigerator, or above our desk at work; so we can reread them daily as God's Spirit transforms our life with them.