Think about it. Every day we wake, perhaps from the effects of the previous day’s problems... hung over, dry mouth, headache, a bloated distended belly, reeking of stale cigarette smoke, sluggish from lack of exercise, irritable. We must hate it. There must be a better way of living, surely.
And this is how God’s grace is relevant to our lives. He gives us fresh chances every single day to reform ourselves more into the likeness of his image and character--the image we were always designed to attain, and can attain more of, today! This is toward a life free of the haranguing physical symptoms of our bad habits; a saved life.
Drinking, smoking, overeating, substance abuse and a lack of exercise and more are in his sights for us to improve upon. For the Christian it’s not just about reading our Bible’s and praying every day if we’re so inclined. For the non-believer it’s not just about trying harder.
Unless God gets a look in, we’ll always struggle--if that’s our personality type... the addictive/dependent type. I can attest to this as I struggled in this way for years!--but no longer as I have found the answer.
If you’re like me and you’ve got a ‘macro,’ all-or-nothing personality, you’ll get your best results by abstaining from, or severely limiting, certain behaviours.
Others who’re more ‘micro’ in personality possibly have a worse, more chronic problem with the bad habits of life. Behaviours are only mildly problematic and hence we might not have the full motivation to change that we might otherwise have. The consequences of our problems creep up on us over ten or twenty years, or a lifetime.
God’s into empowering us to reach new heights of freedom from our overburdening desires run riot.
But, wait, there’s more--a lot more. He wants us to be moulded more into his image by virtue of our thoughts and actions toward speech so what we say builds others up and doesn’t tear them down.
And, there’s even more.
Explore... Explore the Spirit... He has more for you! (And me.)
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