Hello once again, friends!
So... WHERE HAVE I BEEN???
Well, first off, I was a very unmotivated person a month or so ago. (Not that that's an acceptable excuse for my lack of blogging) But this honestly is most of the reason why I didn't do a Bible Study Blog Party wrap-up post before when I was supposed to. (A sad reason, I know..... I'm really sorry about that, you guys... D: Please forgive me.)
Whenever I thought I was going to sit down and write that post, I'd get restless, and just couldn't seem to come up with anything to write. I felt unmotivated and just... blah...
One big reason I believe I got so unfocused was because I started filling up my life with other things. I let myself get distracted with earthly things that my flesh was pulling so hard on me to focus on. I was filling up my schedule and brain power with things that weren't necessarily bad, but just... temporal. I wasn't "fixing my eyes on eternal things" like Paul says in 2 Corinthians.
So that's what basically happened with the Bible Study Blog Party -- I didn't take the time to get myself to really focus on it after writing that first post for it. I'd just groan within myself, hiding under a shell of irresponsibility, declaring that I would get to it some other time when I actually felt like writing it. But that time when I actually felt like writing that blog post never seemed to come. So I just keep putting it off and off.... and off...... Yeah. Not a good life motto.
The part of Romans 8 that I really wanted to talk about during the blog party was in verses 9-12. And basically, these were the exact verses that I needed during that time of unfocused blahness. But instead of truly focusing and letting God speak to me through them and taking the time to write a post about them, I gave into my flesh and didn't really let these words sink in. Recently though, they've been making their way back into my heart.
Here's what these verses say:
"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." ~Romans 8:9-12
That last part there has really stuck with me recently. We're not debtors to our flesh. We don't owe our flesh -- ourselves and our feelings -- anything. Sometimes we say things like, "Well, I owe it to myself" or "I just can't help doing that", and we use this as an excuse for not doing the right thing or putting things off. The thing is though, if we have Christ living in us, we don't "owe it to ourselves" -- we owe ourselves to Christ. You CAN help doing certain things. How? THROUGH CHRIST living in you! You CAN do all things THROUGH CHRIST who strengthens you! (Phil. 4:13) This is what the Lord has really been working to get across to me recently. I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling on the inside of me. So now with Christ living in me, I can overcome my flesh and what it wants to do. With Christ in me, I can overcome my feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions are very real, but the reality of them can't ever supersede the reality of what God says about our situations. He says that we are more than conquerors through Him! (Romans 8:37)
So that's just one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me in that passage recently. There is of course a whole lot more to get out of all of those verses. Hopefully I'll get into more of it in another post sometime soon. :)
But for now, let me FINALLY get to wrapping up this Bible Study Blog Party!
Thanks SO MUCH to all of you who read and participated in this -- you all are wonderful!! Be sure to go over and read Brooklyn's post and Emma's post that they did for the Bible Study Blog Party! They did such a great job, and it's so exciting to read what God put on their hearts to write! If you wrote a post for this that I missed, please link back to it in the comments! I would love to read it!
Again I greatly apologize for my laziness and extreme lateness with finishing up this wonderful study. I will probably end up doing another Bible Study Blog Party again sometime in the near future (and do a much better job at keeping up with it ;) ).
I hope all of you have a wonderful week! God bless!
~Faith
P.S.
It is true that most of the reason for my absence in the blogosphere here has been because of my lack of motivation... but for the past two weeks the main reason has been because I was away on vacation with my family. It was a grand twelve day Colorado adventure, in fact! I will most definitely elaborate on my adventures there in another post very soon, so be on the lookout for that! :D
That last part there has really stuck with me recently. We're not debtors to our flesh. We don't owe our flesh -- ourselves and our feelings -- anything. Sometimes we say things like, "Well, I owe it to myself" or "I just can't help doing that", and we use this as an excuse for not doing the right thing or putting things off. The thing is though, if we have Christ living in us, we don't "owe it to ourselves" -- we owe ourselves to Christ. You CAN help doing certain things. How? THROUGH CHRIST living in you! You CAN do all things THROUGH CHRIST who strengthens you! (Phil. 4:13) This is what the Lord has really been working to get across to me recently. I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling on the inside of me. So now with Christ living in me, I can overcome my flesh and what it wants to do. With Christ in me, I can overcome my feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions are very real, but the reality of them can't ever supersede the reality of what God says about our situations. He says that we are more than conquerors through Him! (Romans 8:37)
So that's just one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me in that passage recently. There is of course a whole lot more to get out of all of those verses. Hopefully I'll get into more of it in another post sometime soon. :)
But for now, let me FINALLY get to wrapping up this Bible Study Blog Party!
Thanks SO MUCH to all of you who read and participated in this -- you all are wonderful!! Be sure to go over and read Brooklyn's post and Emma's post that they did for the Bible Study Blog Party! They did such a great job, and it's so exciting to read what God put on their hearts to write! If you wrote a post for this that I missed, please link back to it in the comments! I would love to read it!
Again I greatly apologize for my laziness and extreme lateness with finishing up this wonderful study. I will probably end up doing another Bible Study Blog Party again sometime in the near future (and do a much better job at keeping up with it ;) ).
I hope all of you have a wonderful week! God bless!
~Faith
P.S.
It is true that most of the reason for my absence in the blogosphere here has been because of my lack of motivation... but for the past two weeks the main reason has been because I was away on vacation with my family. It was a grand twelve day Colorado adventure, in fact! I will most definitely elaborate on my adventures there in another post very soon, so be on the lookout for that! :D
