There is a great stirring within my spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t even explain the feelings I am having.\u00c2\u00a0 They touch deeply into my soul.<\/p>\n
On my way home yesterday from Cory McCool’s Going Home service, … Kelsea sleeping in the back seat, and Jay working on his laptop in the front seat… me driving with one earphone in my ear listening to the Bible on my iphone, dwelling in the presence of God that I felt so strongly through-out the day.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to leave that special resting place, a place of peace that just is so thick and real… where you can almost feel the arms of God wrapping around you.<\/p>\n
I chose to listen to Romans… starting in the first chapter… I got to the end of the 5th chapter, and beginning of the 6th… and I kept replaying it over and over.\u00c2\u00a0 Romans 5:20, where it says, “…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” And in Romans 6:1-6, 11-12… “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.\u00c2\u00a0 How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?\u00c2\u00a0 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.\u00c2\u00a0 For if we have been planted together in likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his ressurection…. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but ALIVE unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u00c2\u00a0 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal BODY, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”<\/p>\n
This last week has been a time of deep reflection into my soul.\u00c2\u00a0 My intents, my purposes… ME.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s hit it even deeper.\u00c2\u00a0 MY SIN!\u00c2\u00a0 Where am I living today?\u00c2\u00a0 I live in a world where, yes, there is much sin, therefore much grace… But I think so often we become immune to sin.\u00c2\u00a0 “Oh, it really isn’t as bad as that!”\u00c2\u00a0 “God wasn’t talking about that, or he loves us too much to do that.”\u00c2\u00a0 If God’s word is true in one statement.. it is true in all statements.\u00c2\u00a0 God is loving, but God also expects obedience and loyalty to Him.\u00c2\u00a0 We fail, often.. but are we so comfortable in our failures that we don’t allow God’s grace to do the work it was meant to do.\u00c2\u00a0 It isn’t meant to allow us to stay in that sin… it is meant to give us the opportunity to rely on God, as he helps lift us out of that sin.<\/p>\n
I look at this world…and think, are we in Sodom and Gommorah?\u00c2\u00a0 Are we so far from God in our culture, in our times, that we really believe that everything is okay… Does our flesh suffer from sacrifice?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it happily content with the state we are in?\u00c2\u00a0 Does the devil fight us?\u00c2\u00a0 or does he leave us alone because we aren’t causing a ripple in the work he set out to do?<\/p>\n
I want to be lifted out of the sin.\u00c2\u00a0 I want my mind to be focused on God and living my life to the fullest by serving Him in whatever he desires of me.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to go backward… I don’t want to be part of a great falling away because I just accept that things are the way they are because of the time we live in.\u00c2\u00a0 No, they aren’t!!\u00c2\u00a0 God is still God!\u00c2\u00a0 God’s word is still true!\u00c2\u00a0 God still expects the same from his people as he always did.<\/p>\n
Am I so caught up in the “things”… (busy, busy, busy.. entertained daily, going through the motions…etc)\u00c2\u00a0 that I miss out on the opportunity that God is giving me to step out from among the rest,\u00c2\u00a0 to dedicate fully and completely to him.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t a one time dedication… it is daily, leaving behind the things that would distract me, tempt me, change me to be something other than what God has called me to be.<\/p>\n
I know this may seem like rambling, but I wanted to get it on cyberspace “paper”,\u00c2\u00a0 so I can study it deeper.\u00c2\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a great stirring within my spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t even explain the feelings I am having.\u00c2\u00a0 They touch deeply into my soul. On my way home yesterday from Cory McCool’s Going Home service, … Kelsea sleeping in the back seat, and Jay working on his laptop in the front seat… me driving with one Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelasthoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}