Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of images from Brian Littrell singing … I Surrender All, prayerfully singing of the attitude which should be held by all disciples of Christ - SURRENDER … and THEN TO THIS LINK to hear Steven Curtis Chapman singing His Strength Is Perfect, declaring that God’s strength is always there for the surrendered Christian who walks with/in Him.
Highlight Passage: Galatians 5:22-23 [NKJV] …
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
… The fruit of walking in the Spirit.
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Highlight Context … Galatians 5:16-25 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul exclaims the fruit of our life as Christians … for the flesh or in the Spirit.
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Reference Passage #1 … 1st Corinthians 10:13 [NKJV] …
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
… The results (“fruit”) of walking in the Spirit.
Reference Passage #2 … 2nd Corinthians 12:9 [NKJV] …
9 And He said to me,T“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
… Jesus promise His sufficiency of grace to Paul in the midst of painful circumstances.
My Journal for Today: … Our Daily Bread author, Jaime Garrido, teaches on the difficulty of surrendering and walking in the Spirit to achieve self-control in our lives. He wrote: Self-control is probably one of the hardest things to master. How often have we been defeated by a bad habit, a lousy attitude, or a wrong mindset? We make promises to improve. We ask someone to hold us accountable. But deep inside, we know that we don’t have the will or the ability to change. We can talk, we can plan, we can read self-help books, but we still find it difficult to overcome and control many of the things that are inside us!
Can I get a witness to our ODB teaching today? How many of us have had some bad habit or sin stronghold in our lives that we desired, but found so difficult, to avoid or conquer. The Apostle Paul certainly knew that when he penned God’s list of the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5:22-23, listing “self-control” last on the list of Christlike characteristics we will see develop in the Christian who walks in the Spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh (see Gal. 5:19-21).
So, how do we come to walk in the Spirit and develop the self-control we need to avoid flesh-driven lusts? Well, the answer to that question, and the key to consistent Christlikeness in our lives as disciples, is a stark irony; and that is that we can only find the power to resist temptation (see 1st Cor. 10:13) by surrendering to the Holy Spirit to receive His empowering grace (see 2nd Cor. 12:9), which, in turn, gives us the power to have self-control.
Therefore, if anyone here still has some resisting stronghold of sin in our lives, it’s apparent that we need to go deeper into surrender mode to receive God’s strength to cover our weakness. Listen, in an attitude of meditation, to the songs linked above, which will help us go deeper into surrender and walk in the Spirit.
My Prayer Today: O, Heavenly Father, … I surrender !!! Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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