I'm a morning person. Being awake at 1am isn't fun for me. But I'm awake for a reason, so I thought I'd share it. Fear has been something that has gripped me lately. It has held me in bondage. It has kept me in a dangerous comfort. It gives me an excuse to refuse the call on my life. But I'm tired of living in fear. Fear has a way of bring up the past to disqualify the future. Tonight I've been on my knees pleading for forgiveness, boldness, peace, and faith to go, do, and say what I have been created for.
Galatians v,1
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to GOD in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of you body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to GOD, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Romans vi, 11-14
I wonder if I struggle with being freed from past sin is because I don't ask for it? Paul, in both passages, offers freedom as a choice. In the letter to the Galatians, he encourages them to "not [let yourselves] be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." It seems as if that gives them the option. They are burdened until they choose not to. And in his letter to the Romans he writes several "do not's" as if they have the choice to either do or do not do.
For in my inner being I delight in GOD's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to GOD-through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to GOD's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans vii, 22-25
Paul continues with these powerful words: "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..." Through Jesus, GOD offers freedom that cannot be experienced outside of the understanding of the cross. For at the cross GOD offers redemption. Apart from the cross there is condemnation.
I think that lately I've been forgetting the cross. GOD forgive me. I choose to fight against my sin nature on my own. And because of that I've been beaten, bruised, and broken. When all I need to do is seek for redemption at the foot of the cross. I understand that this isn't a "all my problems disappear" card, rather this is a way for me to give up/die to myself and ask that GOD guide me, forgive me, comfort me, and carry me. This is the freedom that GOD desires of me. In this freedom I'll find rest tonight.
2 comments:
so, i sort of feel peculiar responding to this. it doesn't feel like something to respond to, like how sometimes the best advice is no advice, and the biggest help is to suffer alongside, and not actually help.
having said that, a couple of months ago, for about a week, i would wake up in the middle of the night, say 3 or 4 (which i believe donny referred to as the witching hour), and i'd wake up with my heart pounding, and i'd be hot and a little sweaty, and i'd wake up with a tremendous fear. fear that i'd become a failure. fear of death and loneliness, fear that nothing i ever did, or myself, would ever amount to anything. and this fear came from nowhere. i mean, i was sleeping, and then i woke up with it, and it's nothing i struggle with during my waking hours. i'm not sure what to make of it, or why i was attacked, but i'm certain that that's exactly what that was.
i don't know how to tie these things together, or if i should.
and you were telling ME to go to bed...
bless you for your honesty, openness and for actually giving a crap about it.
"When you're on an exploratory journey, don't forget that your leader is too."
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