Direct Correlation

Too often I'm reminded that my time or lack there of spent with the Lord directly affects other aspects of my life.

- When I'm in the Word or in constant conversation with God, I tend to be more patient, more forgiving, attempt at more selflessness, I'm a better wife, a better sister, a better daughter, and a better friend, etc.

- When I'm not in the Word or not in regularly prayer beyond meal time, my flesh cries out. I'm irritable, I'm selfish, I'm consumed by gossip, I'm controlling, I'm overall less fulfilled because I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be.

It's amazing! Over and over in my life I'm reminded that there is a direct correlation with how I act and respond in comparison with how my walk is doing with the Lord. The power of the Holy Spirit within me allows me to have the strength to step out of all those fleshly cries and desires, but when I'm not consumed with the Lord, rather consumed by the world, I do not call on that power... rather I allow my flesh to win out in those situations.

Sometimes it's frustration how the Christian walk works: you try and try to live by the Spirit, but often mess up and let your flesh cry out, but at the same time I'm thankful for it too because I'm daily reminded of God's awesome and amazing Grace! That it's not about me, because I can't get it right on my own. It's about our Lord. About the cross and him covering my sin with his blood!!! I just need to wake up the next morning, submit myself to the cross again, laying all my burdens, all my control freak nature, all my sins, all my worries, all my struggles there at the foot of the cross and walk towards him. And when I falter again, He'll pick me up with patience and set me right again.

I'm reminded of Romans 7:7-25 when I write this tonight. Paul writes:

⁷What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."^b]">[b] ⁸But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. ⁹Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

¹¹For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. ¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. ¹³Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^c]">[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but 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. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks 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.

So thankful for grace!