Wordfilled Wednesday: Doing What My Sinfilled Nature Craves

The Bible study I am attending is currently working through Beth Moore's Living Beyond Yourself. Yesterday's video session detailed what living a life in the spirit demands. The verse Beth focused on was the NIV version of Galatians 5:16: "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." The power behind the accompanying message Beth delivered was tangible through out the room. Beth hit this one out of the ballpark! She used her lexicon to dig out the marrow of the passage going back to the Greek words of epithymia, pathos and horme. Together these words refer to the impulse or urgant desires or particular longings and pull towards specific objects. Beth's archaeological wordsmithing left the viewer with the message that an unsatisfied soul is a stronghold waiting to happen. We are all created with the desire to be full, we can't just sit on empty. That means we are just waiting to be filled up. When we are waiting to be filled up, that is when sin and temptation enters in. Coincidentally, I have been facing my temptations this week. I have been wanting to impulsively shop to buy myself new things that will make me feel better, I have wanted to indulge in fresh baked stress goodies and I have given into my temper and as my husband says "barked" at him and my children. I don't want to do any of these things but it is like I don't know how to stop it when I get on the stress roller coaster ride.

I don't think it was a coincidence that this week's video included some practical tips for how to get out of this cycle. As Beth says, just because it is spiritual doesn't mean it is not practical. She started out by explaining that any craving that we have is something lacking, an area that needs to be satisfied. We go to excess or indulge in our destructive behavior because we want to feel differently; but there is a different way to feel differently. Galatians 5:22-23 says that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." How much better would it be to turn to the spirit instead of our vices to have these feelings rather than the feelings of guilt and shame that come along with over eating, compulsive shopping or bitterness?

Beth reiterates multiple times that nothing sin can give us is worth the sacrifice that it costs. Whatever we are hanging onto that we hope to get out of that sinful behavior is not worth what we are giving up for that sin. We can choose to live a life in the spirit full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control or we can chose to live a life of sin, guilt and shame. To chose the spiritual life is simple All me need to do is confess to God and cry out for help.

I personally need to confess these sins and be cleansed and purified before him and then I just need to start fresh, again. Although He already knows it, I need to confess that on Friday I was so overwhelmed I didn't know what to do so I took my kids to the mall, bought them Starbucks, let them play on the play area and then went shopping spending $200.00 I don't have. I need to confess that I have been medicating with food again and have regained all of the 40 pounds that I had lost less than year ago. I need to confess that I snapped at my daughter in a fit of frustration and made her cry because I was angry and my voice scared her. I need to turn to God and have him treat my soul and identify the source of dissatisfaction with in me to move away from the usual paths I take to indulgence and impulsive behavior. I need to work on identifying the feeling before I take the turn down that same old road again and when those feelings arise turn to God so that I don't gratify that sinful part of myself. I need to live in such a way that God's word is in my marrow so that even my urges and loss of control are driven by Godly passion rather than worldy desires.And once I confess all this, I need to actively accept His forgiveness. Once I have nailed this to the bloody cross, there is no taking it back down again. It is stained with His blood, why would I want to take it back down again and look at it? Why do I keep bowing down to guilt? Don't I realize that I am making guilt and idol at which I am worshipping. Beth pointed out that if I can do my part to confess, why then oh why can't I trust Him to do His part to forgive? I just need to trusty Him. So today, fearfully I am confessing and trying to forgive myself for my knee-jerk stress reactions. In turn I am recommitting to my morning Bible study and to my study of the Word here on my blog (as you may of noticed, I wasn't writing so much, I was so busy with life that I just wasn't going into this quiet, reflective space).

Lord,

I am choosing your way rather than my way. I pray that you will give me an Ezekial 36:26 heart and that you put a new spirit in me removing my hardened heart of stone and giving me a heart of flesh that will allow me to let people in and trust others, including you.

Amen.