The Evil Within My Mind

                                                 When The Door Slams 

For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God's law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.             Romans 7:19-25 HCSB   

            All of the "roaring and groaning" of my spiritual desire to overcome evil in my heart--this reached your ears [O Lord]...Now I see that I was searching for the answer outwardly--trying to reason with my mind the best way to escape temptation--when the freeing knowledge I sought could only come by the Holy Spirit as it brings inner light. As long as I kept struggling in this way, I was unable to return to the place where my soul might receive fullness and well-being and rest and joy.

            But you, O Lord, who abides forever--you are not angry with us in our fumbling blindness. You are so merciful to "dust." It was pleasing to you to reshape the deformity that was causing my blindness. You kept stirring me with the sense that I was missing some secret goodness that is in you. O Lord, you kept me in a state of restlessness. Finally, I saw, inwardly, the truth about the origin of evil! 

            I saw how superior I felt, in my striving for spiritual well-being and sufficiency--but in all this striving I was still totally inferior to you. I had been so blind to what I was doing, because pride is like a spiritual wound to the face, swelling shut the inner eyes of understanding. And through this swollenness of pride and disobedient, I was fumbling in the darkness of my mind separated from you. But your healing hand applied to my eyes a stinging ointment that caused repentance and my pride and self-sufficiency to subside. 

            I was given a true understanding for my sinful condition. And at the same moment I saw myself in this way, I looked upon you and your mercy for me...From that day to this, I have kept this stinging ointment for my sins--the pain that causes me to run to you for the healing of my soul, and not away from you but in my pride, mistakenly thinking that I can somehow prove my worthiness. For I see now that this pride--self-sufficiency before you--is the source of the evil within my mind. 

            Affirmation: The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. He lets me lie down in green pasture; He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name's sake. Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff--they comfort me (Psalm 23:1-4 HCSB).     

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.

                                                                Never Rest Ministries

The Biblical Answers Have To Be Lived And Not Just A Thought

                                                  When The Door Slams

Until we all reach unity in the faith and in  the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head--Christ. From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.                            (Ephesians 4:13-16 HCSB)                                                

            I firmly believe in acquainting children with God's judgment and wrath while they are young. Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to skip over the unpleasant scriptures in our teaching. The wages of sin is death, and children have a right to understand that fact.  

            When we accept Christ as Savior, we must also acknowledge and then act upon the fact that if He is our Savior, He is also our Lord in all life. He is Lord not just in religious things and not just in cultural things such as art and music, but in our intellectual lives and in business and in our attitude toward the devaluation of people's humanness in our culture. 

            Acknowledging Christ's Lordship and placing ourselves under what is taught in the whole Bible includes thinking and acting as citizens in relation to our government and its laws. We must know what those laws are and act responsibly to help to change them if they do not square with the Bible's concepts of justice and humanness. The biblical answers have to be lived and not just a thought.

            We must live under the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life--at great cost, If need be. It is a faithful life to think of the Christians in China, paying a great price for their loyalty to Christ, but that does not relieve each of us from being under the Lordship of Christ in regard to our own country. 

            Think about this: With Christ as Savior and Lord, we must do all that we can to lead others to Christ. And simultaneously we must use every constitutional practice to offset the rise of authoritarian governments and the loss of humanness in society. But there is no use in talking of offsetting the loss humanness in society if we do not act humanly to all people about us in the contacts of our individual lives.

            Affirmation: We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him for the administration of the days fulfillment--to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him (Ephesians 1:7-10). 

Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness 

                                               Never Rest Ministries