Task and Ability

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, 

and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.

(1 John 1:5) 

This morning I had a vision of God going to the core of my being and finding the scared little girl covered in soot and darkness and the instant He hugged me I transformed into light.  

So I prayed...

Search me O God, and try my thoughts, know me!  See if there are any offensive ways in me and lead me in Your way everlasting! 

I heard the words:  Passions and desires

Are my passions and my desires aimed in having You? 

This morning I just wanted to jump straight into my reading for my quiz today.  I didn't want to spend an hour with You, because my prize was getting what I needed to get done, done. 

My prize is my to do list. 

My idols are Task and Ability. 

Father, I need Your help! 

I don't want to be enslaved to Task and Ability!  

I want to be Your slave because You are the only Good and True Master who not only I am called to serve but am called into adoption as Your child!  

Task and Ability only seek to destroy, steal, and kill me!  Yet why do I follow their orders?

There is disorder in me God. 

Task and Ability say that in order to be worth any standing value I have to prove myself to myself and to You and to others. 

But You say in order to be worth all standing value I must put off my flesh and put on Christ. 

So then I stand looking at Task and Ability versus Christ.  

Christ looks weak and incapable, while Task and Ability look strong and shiny! 

But my eyes see only what my mind has been taught to know, so I need a knowledge that is higher than mine to give me new eyes to see and a new understanding of what things mean.

I need a renewed perspective. 

The law shows that this and this will mean this, yet Your new law says that Christ has finished fulfilling the requirements of the Law--which I myself could never do!  Therefore to live and move and breathe and have my being in Christ is the only way to expose Task and Ability for the frauds they are!  

They tempt me to believe that I could fulfill something to be someone!  But in the end I find by experience after experience that I cannot be anything but broken apart from the grace You give me in Christ.  

“I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 

But if you are led by the Spirit, 

you are not under the law.  (Task and Ability do not teach you how to live anymore)

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. 

I tell you about these things in advance — as I told you before — that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. 

Against such things there is no law. (Not even Task and Ability could offer something better than these or deny their exceeding value!)

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Galatians 5:16-24 

Our bodies have passions and desires that direct our attention to what the body aims for. 

Our daily lives will either result in sexual immorality, fits of rage, disunity, and the like

Or in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faith, gentleness and self control. 

This is the truth whether your perspective believes it or not, the Word of God is explicit about revealing where our passions and desires must be put off in order for His to be put on. 

What are your passions and desires aimed at today?  Prayerfully bring them to God and you will be humbled (by your emotions against God) that you cannot change on your own.  You need help because you are not enough to change you.  Those who ask, seek, and knock will be answered.  

Bring your need. 

Love you guys.