CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Self Check

By: Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I find it easy to rush right through a day without taking time to evaluate whether I’m doing the right things from the right motives. Sometimes I need to stop and examine my life.
The Puritan writer, John Fletcher, used a series of questions to examine his heart.

• Do I have pride?
• Am I dead to all desire for praise?
• Do I have the presence of God in my life?
• Am I free from the fear of man?
• Do I embrace the cross in every way it presents itself to me?

It's important to take some time on a regular basis to stop and take stock and place our lives under God's divine searchlight.

• Am I willing to give up my ease and my convenience to minister to others?
• Am I ready to give up a point when I am contradicted?
• Am I content with whatever is or may be, feeling that God, the Author of all events, does and will do all for my good?

Friday, April 8, 2011

How easily I am led astray

I am weak. I am. My thoughts easily get turned from the things of God, to the things of the world. It is a sad confession. I wish that I was so strong in faith that I never struggled in little areas of my life, but I do.

For ME media is a huge coercion to selfishness. To focus on things, lots of pretty things, that distract me from heavenly purposes and lead me to self. But when I allow myself to be bombarded with it my heart is not as sensitive to the effect it has on me. From the time I became a Christian I have been called to give up secular music. I remember in High School purposing to not listen to it, and then being in the car with a Christian girlfriend and she had Christina Aguilera on in her car. I thought, "well surely I am being too dramatic in my following of Christ. Christians don't have to cut out all secular music". So I allowed it back in. Granted I was guarded in what I listened to, but I still listened. *Now - I understand that not all Christians feel conviction about what type of music they listen to, and that is not even the purpose of this post. I'm getting to it.*

This past year I was listening to really bad stuff. It started innocent, listening to some main stream music and then it progressed. I was downloading songs of the billboard top 100 every week and adding them to my iTunes library. It was an impressive collection of junk I had accumulated. Eventually I became desensitised to exactly how bad what I was listening to had become and it started to change me.

Music wasn't responsible for the dark pit I had gotten myself into, but it contributed. I was constantly listening to lyrics that encouraged selfishness, focus on sex appeal, partying, lust of possessions and other things contrary to the word of God. I gave in. In many areas I compromised my convictions until they were but a whisper. A small cry from God to return in a quiet and distant voice. I shut the door on God and did my own thing.

Thankfully, God broke through my darkness, but it required a broken marriage, a broken spirit, broken friendships, and being the closest to hell I hope to ever experience on this earth. A life apart from God is hell.

There were choices that had to be made. Choices that didn't line up with my new way of thinking of myself, but with God's word. With TRUTH. The first was aligning my priorities with the Lord. That meant I wasn't the center of my universe anymore. God, Jeff, my children, my home, others. Me can't be part of that equation, because ME quickly becomes an idol. Self is scary thing. It is so natural to want to seek it and please it. But it is not what God wants of me and there is only one cure..

"... we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." 1 Cor 10:5


"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Phil 4:8