In the meantime

Romans 8:11 “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” (KJV) The ESV helps us better understand the meaning of  “quicken”: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” The Spirit will quicken, or make alive, our mortal bodies. We needed to be made alive because we were dead--much more dead than the corpse turned to dust after lying deep in the earth for a century. Not only were we dead, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to change our state. However, we read in Ephesians 2:5 that “even when we were dead in sins, [God] hath quickened us [ made us alive (ESV )] together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).” We were dead, but through His Son’s life, God ha...

Now that we have passed the “most risky” part of our pregnancy and are now over halfway there and without any signs of trouble, I often catch myself thinking, or even saying, that “God has been good.” Instantly, though, the thought comes to mind: Would He not be good if we had miscarried (or still do miscarry)? Would that change the fact that God is good?   Would I still be so quick to say that He has been good?”   Of course, we all agree that our circumstances don’t change the fact that God is good , and that He always will be good.  But our flesh is so much more hesitant to proclaim that He has been good when we go through pain-filled, life-changing circumstances. We tend to be so short-sighted and earthly-minded that even though we love God and have testified in the past that He is good , we usually gravitate towards declaring God to be good only when our  circumstances line up with what we would define as “good.”  And...

I am so thankful for the presence of the Spirit in my life: He ensures my salvation, He has made me a part of the Body of Christ, He enables me to walk the Christian walk, and He convicts me of my sin.  It is this last aspect of the Spirit’s ministry that is most painful.  I know where I am wrong. I know what I need to do that is right. But it is so hard!  It is in times like these that I particularly feel my sinful desires kick in and struggle against the Spirit. It is easy to excuse my actions. However, it is in times like this that the Spirit once again has to remind me of something that I have unconsciously pushed to the back of my mind for a while: “You are responsible for what you do.  You are not responsible for what others do or may do to you. You are going to answer to God for your actions.  You are not going to answer for the actions of others.  Now, you have the facts.  What are you going to do with them?” Such bold truths put me between a...