Jesus~to know Him is to love Him. But putting aside "in-this-world" pursuits and focusing on Him is to CRAVE Him.
Day One wasn't hard as far as eating goes. The Daniel diet (Daniel 1:8-16) isn't difficult for me to follow because I tend toward vegetarian eating anyway. Well, except for abstaining from grain foods--brown rice, barley, corn, wheat, oats that are no-nos right now. But I started to drop them from my diet months ago because foods with gluten slow or stop my ongoing battle to control my weight.
My areas of temptation came from other areas: like staying away from reruns of Castle--the only TV show I watch, after Terry Burns said it's great. I never wanted to watch the reruns before. HAH! Sounds like the little foxes trying to spoil the vine. Get thee behind me, satan.
A bigger one was laying down the desire to read fiction before bedtime instead of centering on Him. At one point I looked at a novel that I had started earlier this week. Read two measley, but fun, pages. Dumb, dumb move. And wanted to get back to them. Some struggling ensued until this thought came to me: is reading about imaginary people more important than spending time with the King of the universe? No contest, there. The book stayed on the shelf.
Another one: not attending evening prayer services on Fridays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. I forced myself to go last night, but even that wasn't difficult because before the fast began, I told the Lord I wanted to become as pliable as clay in His hands. I kept seeing an image of myself with a pair of doors the size of my ribcage in the front of my chest. And I opened them as a sign of surrender. "Come in and take me over, Lord, I'm yours. Do whatever you choose to change me from a selfish, controlling person to a meek and adoring replica of Jesus."
Little voices came to me throughout the day. "Catch up with your Facebook messages. Write your email messages. Do this. Do that." Anything to put my attention on something other than the Lord. But the image of my surrender doors returned to me repeatedly to remind me of my commitment. So I kept business related things to a minimum. The rest can wait.
I'm falling more in love with my lover Jesus, and He's honoring my commitment by giving me a renewed eagerness to spend time with Him. But more than that... I CRAVE Him with a growing passion. Something that I hadn't experienced in some time, I'm ashamed to admit.
If all this happened after only one day of pursuing Him. What changes will the Holy Spirit wrought after 21?
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Sounds like God is molding us to what He wants. I've been dealing with the same issues. God Bless You with all Spiritual Blessings.
ReplyDeleteHe is an awesome God, and the more I know Him, the more I realize how nothing I am without Him and His incredible Word. He is my strength, my joy, and inspiration, my anchor, my stability, my security. When I think of how Jesus laid down His life every moment of every day for us,how can I not be thrilled. And when I fall, He's there before I cry out for help. What a friend we have in Jesus.
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