So I Say,
Let The Holy Spirit Guide Your Lives.
Then You Won't Be Doing What Your Sinful Nature Craves.
Scripture
Galatians 5
16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Observation
When you and I follow the 'cravings' of our sinful nature, the results are very clear, and the results I might add, are very bad and very destructive. But today in our culture, people are trying to say, that these evil desires, these 'cravings', that they are okay.
Galatians 5:16-22 clearly lets us know that there is a battle constantly going on inside of each one of us if we are Christians. The Holy Spirit always trying to guide us while our old sinful nature is constantly trying to control us.
I just saw that I wrote about these verses last year on March 14th! Here is what I said:
Squeeze a lemon and what do you get … lemon juice, if you and I get squeezed what should come out … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control!
Inside of each one of us, there is spiritual warfare going on and it never stops … every day our old sinful nature battles against God's Holy Spirit wanting us to do wrong.
My wife, Kathy, loves to tell the story of the Indian that had two dogs that loved to fight … a white dog and a black dog. He would travel from town to town and people would gamble on which dog would win the fight. This Indian made lots of money because he always knew which dog was going to win the fight.
… one day someone asked him how he always knew which dog would win in each fight, to which he replied, “Oh, that is easy, my friend, it is the one that I feed the most!”
You and I can make sure that we are full of God's Holy Spirit by devouring God's Word every day. Take time to open up God's Word and feed your soul every day.
If the Bible is new to you, I suggest that you start and read the Gospel of John and then the Gospel of Mark and the book of Psalms!
Application
I will devour God's Word every day!
How about you?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, it is my desire to be full of Your Holy Spirit. I do not want to give in to any cravings of my flesh. Give me the strength to say 'no' to temptations when they come my way today. I know that each and every day spiritual warfare is being waged in my life. There is a battle going on inside of me. I want Your Holy Spirit to win the battle. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is what I want coming out of me today when I get squeezed and nothing else!
Daily Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 25,26,27; Galatians 5
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