Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

Choose Life

Tragically when we as Christians choose self-will, we always support it with Scripture. Our knowledge of Scripture causes us to be puffed up, thinking of ourselves above others and more highly than we ought to think (Rom. 12:3). We hold the right doctrines, are hearers of the Word but not doers, deceiving ourselves. We say "Amen" to the doctrine, but say, "Don't judge" when the Word is applied to us. The Word is good and pure. The law is good; it's not death. The law is alive in every one that's walking in the spirit. The man that's alive in the spirit takes no merit in the law but takes pleasure in fulfilling it.

If we're going to be safe in this last day, then we need to understand who man is and where we are in our walk. Tragically, though most of us would like to think that we are living in Romans chapter 8, in reality we are vacillating through chapters 6, 7 and 8. We claim chapter 8 because Jesus pronounced righteousness upon us. Legally we are righteous, but literally we are progressively being sanctified and in hope of glorification.

"[For] there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness...and not to me only, but unto all...that love his appearing" (2 Tim. 4:8). We are a people that are loving, seeking, and hoping for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're seeking things that are above where Jesus is seated at Father's right hand and laying up treasures in heaven. Yet at the same time, the powers of the kingdom of this world and the god of this world are seducing every one of us back into the temporal, the profane, and death. Set before us today is a choice: life and death. On a daily basis, we choose one. The admonition is to choose life (Deut. 30:19). You see, it's our choice. God has done His part. Choose life.

Realize that within you abides death and the capacity to relinquish the free, eternal gift of the life of God entrusted to you. For in you lies sin in your members--either dormant, subdued, or empowered--ready to take over and destroy you. For to be spiritually minded is life, but to be carnally minded is death. They that walk in the spirit will not be under the influence of the flesh. So many of us unknowingly compare ourselves by ourselves, other Christians, the world, or other generations of believers; but we only have the right to compare ourselves with Jesus. He's our example and the One that you're being conformed to. The question you need to ask is not, "Am I doing better than everybody else?" but, "Am I becoming more like Jesus or less like Jesus in my own personal pursuit?" It doesn't matter if you're fifty percent further down the road than someone else. If you're going backwards, you're dying. Where are you at this moment in the preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus?

The way we find ourselves dying and atrophying in our spiritual lives after having known Him is by trusting in having once partaken instead of momentary, daily bread. We have water in broken cisterns instead of the Living Water springing up out of our innermost being as we're being refreshed momentarily in our hunger and our pursuit. We've found other ways to refresh ourselves and to make ourselves content. Because no man is content without the presence of God, we can become drunken and drugged with all of the momentary entertainment, pleasures, and sins of this world. They are pleasurable and will intoxicate us for a season. Although they will sedate us for a season, reality will come.

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