Preface
Throughout
scripture, the love of God for His people is declared over and over again. Not only is His love for us proclaimed, but
His love was made manifest on the cross of Calvary. No greater love has ever been known, nor will
any act of love ever compare.
We
know this. We sing about His great
love. We teach about it in Sunday
School. We hear our pastors rightly
boast of this amazing love. Yet, how
often do we find ourselves living outside of the realization of God’s love and
the fullness of His Holy Spirit?
As
born-again believers, we have been equipped with the fullness of the Holy
Spirit and the fruit He bears within us:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
These qualities will become more prevalent within us as we submit
ourselves to God’s sanctifying power.
However,
many of us are not living with full awareness of the Holy Spirit within
us. We suppress and we grieve the Holy
Spirit when we let our sin nature rule over us or we let the circumstances of a
fallen world beat us down.
It is my desire that this book will
help us recognize this vicious cycle, guard against it and learn how to live
full on a consistent basis.
In Christ,
Julia Rogers
Chapter
1: Circuit Overload
Everyone
and everything has a threshold; a physical, mental, structural limit or a
combination of these things that can be withstood before breaking or blowing.
My
kitchen breaker exceeds its electrical threshold almost every morning. My sleepy
crusted eyes open to the dreaded sound of my annoying alarm. I may hit snooze a few times. The crick in my neck tells of the curly
headed toddler who made her way into my bed during the night. I say a quick prayer of thanks that my alarm
didn’t wake the sleeping cherub. My
early years of playing the game Twister come to mind as I twist my body into
weird angles as I maneuver out of bed so as to not wake little miss and her
daddy. I blindly make my way down the
hallway, and stub my toe on the table that I promise you, keeps moving during
the night. For the love- I need my
coffee!!
I
pour some milk in a coffee cup and proceed to heat it in the microwave before I
froth it. And that is when it
happens. I sometimes forget that I can’t
have the microwave, espresso machine, and desk lamp all on at the same time or
the breaker will blow. You would think
that I would know this after two years of renting this house. But no- it still happens quite frequently,
I’m afraid.
On
the mornings that I am disciplined and resist the oh-so-tempting snooze button,
the sun has not yet kissed the horizon.
If that happens to be on a morning that I blow the breaker, I have to go
into our backyard in the dark to flip the breaker switch. I pray the whole time that God would protect
me from the spider webs, snakes, and the possum that lives in our
backyard. I flip the switch and all is
well again. I can have my beloved
espresso.
And
so goes my life. I’m trekking along,
surrounded by the knowledge of God’s love and feeling it deep down in my heart
and soul. I’m passing it on to others
and I’m aware of the Spirit’s power within me. But then somewhere along the
way, I let my guard down. I allow things
in that suppress the fullness of God’s love and His Sprit. Sometimes, the general circumstances of
living in a fallen world leave me depleted and I lose focus on God’s power
within me. My threshold becomes
weak. Before long, my circuit
experiences overload and I blow.
Turn Some Things Off
What
do I do when this happens? In the same
way that I have to turn off my desk lamp to reduce the electrical load, I have
to take a look at my life and determine what is causing my circuit to overload
and turn it off.
Often
or not, it’s more than one thing that needs to be turned off. Sin is like that isn’t it? Sin feeds off of sin. Once we let one sin take up residence in our
souls, sin’s mother, father and brother are soon to follow. The more we let in, the harder it is to put a
stop to it. We form emotional and physical
bonds to our sin. Even when we
recognize and discern its power to destroy us, we have a hard time kicking it
to the curb. How do we guard against
this?
Do Not Underestimate the Enemy
Take a moment to read 1 Peter
5:8-10 (ESV):
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil
prowls around like
a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing
that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little
while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will
himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
The first
thing we me must acknowledge when seeking to overcome our sin, is that we will
not ever fully overcome it while alive on earth. But that doesn’t mean that we should raise
our white flag of surrender. We have all
been given a mission by God while we have air in our lungs to be kingdom
advancers. And that is why we must
absolutely wage war against the enemy who loves nothing more than to distract
us from our God given calling.
What we
perceive to be going on in our world around us is only part of the story. There is a spiritual dimension that exerts
powerful and direct influence on us. The
apostle Paul describes it this way:
“We do not wrestle against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
places.” (Ephesians 6:12)(ESV)
Satan
knows our weaknesses and how to tempt us.
He knows exactly which fruit to dangle in front of our face. He knows how to disguise it as something
good. But even good things are sinful if
we accept and seek after them in disobedience to God. I know this all too well.
Jordan
and I were just babies in the ministry and had only been married for two short
years when we bought our first home. We
had just moved to a new town, our firstborn had just turned one, and we were
pregnant with our second son. We were so ready to have a place of our own and
to be settled that we jumped into a house that seemed really good at the
time. We didn’t pray much about it or
even really think too hard about the decision.
We just saw it as good and jumped.
We lived in that home for 9 short months before we had to move
again. We spent over two years trying to
sell it before we went through the excruciating process of applying for a short
sale. We finally sold it, but we had to
wait another two years for the short sale to come off of our record before we
could begin looking for another home to buy.
So you see, chasing after something just because it is good, can leave
you with very bad consequences.
Sometimes
the consequences are not as obvious as my experience stated above, but large or
small, sin always has this effect: We
let it in and it has to compete with God for our love, relationship, and
devotion. Sin overloads our circuit. It creeps in and we distance ourselves from
God. We stop living with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We stop living fully aware of the
Holy Spirit within us.
Strengthen my
Threshold
Obviously,
there are things in this life that are not always brought on by our own
individual sins necessarily, but are a result of living in a fallen world. In a sense, Adam’s sin is also our sin and we
have to deal with the consequences daily.
And the consequence of a fallen world means that bad things happen that
we have no control over. No matter how
strong of a Christian we are, we will be affected by tragedy and
misfortune. We will talk about this more
in a later chapter, but it’s never too soon to start strengthening our
threshold to be able to withstand such travesties in this life.
The only way to strengthen our threshold is
to look to the Creator of strength. Dig
deep into His Word, which is the Sword of the Spirit. Having strength also means being able to
defend against our enemies, so take up your sword. Meditate on it day and night. Doing so, will guard against the very sins
that overload your circuit and will strengthen your threshold to withstand the
travesties of living in a fallen world.
Self Reflection
and Group Discussion:
1. Generally
speaking, what sins do you think American Christians most struggle with? What
sins in your own life are you letting overload your circuit?
2. How many of these
things seem like “good” things but aren’t exactly reaping “good” benefits?
3. What can you do
to guard against the things that overload your circuit?
4. Have you ever
gone through motions of the Christian walk but not really felt a deep
connection with God? How did you get to that place? How did you come out of it?
5. How often do you
find yourself “performing” instead of really living a life sold out for Christ?
How do you stop the performance?
6. Read Galatians
5:22-23. When you read about the fruits
of the spirit, how do you compare? Which
of the fruits do you recognize as your stronger areas? Which are your
weakest?
7. How can you
strengthen your threshold to withstand the travesties of living in a fallen
world?
8. How much time do
you spend in God’s word, the source of your strength?
9. How much time do
you spend in prayer?
No comments:
Post a Comment