October 8

“The ‘not I’ religion forgets self in its absorption in God.  It expects nothing from self but everything from God; it demands nothing for self but seeks to lavish all on the Lord; it learns to recognize in God the same blessed attributes and begins to have an insight into His heart of self-forgetting love and tenderness.”     Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 9/24

The “I” religion, on the other hand, demands its rights and expects everyone to come up to its standards.  Hannah asserted there were religious leaders of the day that had the “I” religion.  Things haven’t changed.  But you don’t have to be a leader to have an “I” religion.  Every time I hear the Prodigal Son parable I squirm because I identify too closely with the older brother. He thought he had not been treated fairly by his father because he’d always been the good son and had never been rewarded for it.  What he couldn’t see was that everything was his already.  Hannah concludes that we must crucify Self each and every time it clamors for recognition.  This has been why I’ve not been successful.  I’ve not taken the need to crucify Self every time seriously.  I’ve let it slide because I have some good excuse ready to justify why this time it won’t matter if I let Self have it’s way.  As I seek to glorify God, however, in all things, Self won’t be able to convince me so easily.  I must always remember to be diligent, putting on the whole amour of God.

“Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  Ephesians 6:13-17

March 17

“We can choose to be kept from yielding to any temptation which plagues us.  But, if we choose to yield to the temptation, one thing inevitably results--we become rebellious!.....I see now I have no more alibis left.  He has already led my ‘captivity captive.’  I need not yield to the temptation.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 3/17

Eugenia said she would yield to temptation because she feared she’d be smothered if she did not give in to it.  I’ve never given much thought to why I give into temptations when they come.  Sometimes it happens so quickly I’m not at all aware of my thought process.  But there must be some thoughts going on that I’m not aware of that allows me to say yes when I know I should say no.  I’ve never been happy with my decision to say yes to temptation afterwards, which would in turn lead me further into temptations to rebel as I tried to dig myself out of my pit.  Now that I understand I’m a new creature and that it’s Christ’s life in me that I am now living, I’m getting better at understanding the power of sin.  The only way I can now sin is to obey my flesh.  Recently I was on the phone with someone I love.  I was confronting this person with something they did not want to hear and they retaliated.  Tears came to my eyes, but I noticed my voice did not change.  It remained steady and sure of what it was saying to this person that they needed to hear.  I realized at that point their remark had punctured my flesh, but not my heart.  It was God’s voice speaking through me, and God cannot be injured.  My flesh wound did not deter me from continuing to speak the Truth in Love. 

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  John 8:36