Holy Sieve

God is teaching me so much about obedience lately.  Obedience is kind of a new thing I have learned since I was a rotten kid and all.  And the cool thing is, that if we obey, really amazing things start developing in us and our mind starts thinking more wisely. This said, I have been experimenting with being more and more obedient to God and His ways, and I must say, I really like the outcome.  Believe me, it has not been all easy-peasy, since I didn’t even know I was being rotten in some of the areas that the Holy Spirit has exposed to me, and since I have an incredibly strong will that likes to be rotten sometimes.  But when I have chosen the thing that I know I am supposed to do, when I have denied myself, when I have done the hard thing and refused to feel sorry for myself, I feel really good and strong inside—like I am getting “fitter” in my spirit or something.  God will sometimes stop me mid-thought and say “judging…” or “complaining…” or “watch it!” and when I heed that voice that speaks Truth, and when I listen to it and stop my thought instead of letting it germinate, I feel like I have just done like 100 push ups spiritually—do you understand what I’m sayin’ here?  I mean the discipline of it all is hard, but it gets lots easier the more I practice it.  I think it’s pretty cool that Christ’s Spirit in me gives me the ability to sift through my thoughts and just capture the good ones—the ones that think truth—kind of like a holy sieve.  But here’s what I’ve also figured out: To learn to think with Truth requires me to remind myself of the Truth each and every day.  And this reminding occurs when I spend time reading and studying the Word of God.  If I forget to remind myself of Truth daily, then my holy sieve doesn’t work near as well…or at all; and then we’re back to rottenness again.  And nobody likes that.  Let me show you a neato (I can say that ‘cause I grew up in the 70’s—even though spell-check does not acknowledge it as a word) passage about obedience that God showed me yesterday.  I loved it so much that I wrote it out two times and plan to memorize it as a counter-attack for when my will rears its ugly head.  Drink in its truth:

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.  The man who says, “I know him”, but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But if anyone obeys his word, God’s truth is truly made complete in him.  This is how we know we are in him:  Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

1 John 2:3-6

Neato!