I am currently reading Jentezen Franklin’s book entitled, “The Spirit of Python: Exposing Satan’s Plan to Squeeze the Life Out of You”. In it, the author paints a vivid picture of the way Satan slowly, almost imperceptibly, squeezes the spiritual breath out of us. What we perceive as harmless distractions actually can have a major impact on our lives. What we see and hear affects what we think about, and what we think about directly correlates to how we live. It’s so easy to go throughout our day without giving a second thought to what we are allowing to shape our thinking, and ultimately our destiny.
freewill
Live Worthy of Your Calling
When we choose to follow Christ, we agree to surrender everything to Him. We, in effect, become His slave or His prisoner. This is not a negative, not slavery in the traditional sense, but it does mean that every move we make is now dedicated to God. We were given the gift of freewill at creation; when we make the decision to follow Jesus we are giving that freewill back to Him and letting Him know that we willingly submit to His plans and His desires for our lives. From this point forward everything we do will be a result of His will. We are captivated by His love, indeed captive to His love. It is in this way that we become His prisoner.
Is Your Living Worth His Dying?
Good Friday is the most solemn day of the year. It is the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus. While the event was necessary to prove the power of Christ over death and ultimately resulted in His resurrection, there is still no more ominous moment in history. Never before, never since, and never again will such a tragedy occur. We remember this day because the very creation of God, acting in the freewill given to them by their Creator, nailed His Son to a cross and watched Him die. Jesus willingly allowed them to take His life from Him so that He might be the salvation of us all.
Dying Every Day
We are not enslaved by Satan, but rather by ourselves. It is our own selfish and carnal nature that stands between surrendering our lives fully to Christ. Satan cannot force us to sin or disobey. But we ourselves, as agents of freewill, have the ability to choose between obedience and disobedience; between life and death. Blaming the devil for our lack of commitment is an easy excuse for our own lack of devotion and self-discipline. Jesus instructed us to take up our cross daily (Matthew 16:24-26) because He knew we would battle our selfish desires each day, and so each day we would need to place our old cravings on the cross and kill them. We truly must crucify the old man. It isn’t just an analogy. Each day we must decide whether our selfish desires will live, or if instead we will crucify them so that we might live in Christ.
Taking Action
Most of us wish we were doing more that mattered. As followers of Christ we know we should be walking in His footsteps, doing the things He did and told us to do. We even make plans and resolutions to do more, serve more, and be more. Even when we are determined and our motives are pure, we tend to stop there. We stop at a wish, a hope, or even a prayer. But there are no style points in God’s Kingdom for wishful thinking. It is only when we take action and boldly move forward that the mission of Christ is furthered.