Ready for Whatever
A city with great big walls is "fortified", like God mentions to Jeremiah in Jeremiah Chapter 1. God is building us into a fortified city. Why? Well so we can take a beating and keep on going. Here we find out the OHSO important early step of Christianity. It is something we start dealing with just when we receive Christ, and something we will continue to deal with our whole lives. Some will do well, others won't. I think I fit in somewhere in the middle. Self Control. It is the fruit of the Spirit that stands at the gate towards love, we can produce no other fruit, in my opinion, until this one is working at least a bit; Faithfulness, Gentleness, Joy, Peace, yes even Love. Can we control "self". Well this is the starting line. Paul shows us that he was struggling with self in Romans 7 and 8. "Who will save me from this body of death..." and "The things I don't want to do.. I keep doing." Sound like someone you know? So if Paul has a fight, so do you. And when we are losing the fight our walls are shrinking..even breaking down. Although through grace sin no longer has power to separate you from God, or His power, His blessings, or eternal life, it still has real physical consequences. When you sin then you give permission to the world and the enemy to steal from you. Say you cheat on your spouse... you may lose your family. God will forgive you, you don't have to go to hell, but you just created a bit of hell right here on earth, didn't you? God forgives drug dealers and murderers, but they may still have some prison time in the physical world. So God here is teaching us that in order to live a more secure stable and blessed life, we need to let Him build up our city walls, and we need to stop tearing them down by listening to the desires of this world, and the tempter. SELF CONTROL. Go get it.
Created over 1 year ago
