Wednesday February 15, 2017 Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. 

Nick-

Here lately I have been convicted of putting things before God and him being second in my life. There are a lot of distractions here even though we are in a ministry. Things that I haven’t been around since being saved. And these things or distractions, though they seem very harmless, drag me away from my relationship and union with the lord. And when God is second, I start to be a slave to sin not God. My heart begins to fill with things that will never satisfy and desires something to fill it. Im so blessed and thankful to the Lord for bringing to this point in my walk with him. Our time with Pastor Donathan yesterday really ministered to me in a huge way. He said something that I have forgotten over the past year and a half. He said that we are designed and were created to worship God and its pleasing to him when we do. That is what my heart has being craving for a few months now and I could not figure out what it was. I couldn’t figure out where or why I seemed to becoming lukewarm in my walk with him. I somehow had become a slave to these small sins that were dragging me away from the Lord. Praise be to God for showing me where I have fallen from and where he desires me to be. Revelation 2:5 "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the the works you did at first. If not I will come and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent.” This verse has been coming to mind for a couple of months now, but I just couldn’t seem to get myself to the place to be obedient to what it was saying. Thank you God for your gentle and loving touch to help me get back to a heart of worship.

Julie-

I am so prone to wonder.  I am like a child.  I need perameters and boundaries.  I need a master.  I have to lay my pride down every day to accept this and remember, but I have to be a slave to something bigger and more powerful than myself.  The Lord is my Master and I am His slave.  And if I do not wake up every morning and say "God, I am yours.  Help me to be who it is that you've called me to be and not who I want to be", then I am stepping out of His yoke and becoming a slave the enemy.  Fortunately, there is no gray area to misinterperate this.  If I am not following God as my Master, then I am a slave the enemy.  There is no argument to that.  The enemy tries to disguise himself as the law so we recognize him as the old religion.  When I don't pray for God's help, I fall into that old law and become a slave to it so easily, because I am like a child.  I see something shiny and get up from my Father's feet to chase it.  But it only leads me down the path of distruction.  It sounds like from what I'm saying and what all of chapter six is saying, we actually have a choice to be slaves to death or life.  How gracious is our God that he doesn't make us sit at His feet.  I remember when I was little and if I got in trouble my Dad would make me sit next to his chair as a punishment.  I was miserable.  All I wanted to do was run away.  But many times when I wasn't in trouble, I would come and sit in his lap out of my own will and enjoy whatever it was that he wanted to say or teach me.  Praise God that he knows how prideful we are, and that if we are controlled and tied down to Him, then we will not appreciate or listen to Him.  Every day I want to crawl up in the Lord's lap and ask him to be my Master.  I want to humbly ask to be his slave, because when I stop being a slave to sin I am actually a child and heir through God (Galations 4:7).  What a precious gift to recieve just by being obedient to Him.  The choice is mine to follow death or life.  Of course, I choose life.  But with that choice, I must be obey my Master and step in line as His slave, His warrior and His child.  This requires not letting the world distract me, but instead staying focused on my life example - Jesus.