Life by the Spirit:What does life by the spirit mean to you? To me? God wants to purify our Soul..........I have reached a point in my Spiritual Journey with God that feels like I am in the "DARK NIGHT OF MY SOUL." The dark night of the soul is when a person loses some of the pleasure that was once experienced in one's devotional life.......But there is a reason for this, it is when God is doing his best work in us...... This can happen because God wants to purify and refine us by moving us on to greater things.....
Their comes a time in our life where God wants more! He will nudge us to grow deeper with him....What is it that is holding me back from this? Did you know that it is us who determines the level of intimacy that we have with God? Not God....In other words the only thing that prevents me from going deeper with God is ME.....My spiritual laziness... My desire to keep the house clean, and the laundry done. It is me who is always trying to shove one more load of laundry in. It is me who is putting God on the back burner because of this thing called "LIFE." So now I have found myself to be one who is having "a dark soul of the night." Did you know that anything that keeps you or me from growing deeper with God is called IDOL WORSHIP?..........What is it that we are elevating to a higher importance than spending time with God?
We have to lay our idols down.....Instead of strolling through the house picking up the kids clothes off the floor, making all the beds up in the mornings and wiping the crumbs off the counter and trying to squeeze in that one more load of laundry. We should be taking the time to just "BREATH," and enjoy God's prescence........
What is it that's keeping me from going deeper with God? What is it that's keeping me from praying with great urgency and perseverance? Where is my "JOY?"
He has removed some consolation from my soul. He is teaching me virtue and showing me where I have developed "PRIDE." God himself has placed His righteousness in us!! How am I thanking Him for His gift?
Have we become so content in our growth that we prefer to condemn others for not being as "SPIRITUAL," as us? This is huge: (Do we BEG God to take away our imperfections, only because we want to find that inner peace? BUT NOT FOR GOD'S SAKE? Am I walking in obedience to God, or am I only doing what I really want to do?Description of me these last few weeks: I have cried more in the last few weeks than I have in a lifetime. I feel that I am in what's called the "dark night of the soul." I have become angry with myself thinking that my loss of joy is a result of something I have done to anger God or something that I have neglected to do for God. God has shown me that I lack the patience that WAITS on God.......I am beginning to learn about Spiritual Meekness.....which will only come in the dark night of the soul...... Galatians 5:16-21; 16; So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17; For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18; But if you are lead by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19; The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. 20; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21; and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.......
This is a warning! "I warn you as I did before, that those who LIVE LIKE THIS WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
But the beautiful thing about God is:
The invisible unfelt "GRACE," of God is much greater, and it is beyond our comprehension........True Spirituality comes from: patience, perseverance and humility....The Lord will heal our souls through the darkness in our life......He will take the imperfections within us and because of His Love for us will nudge us, to grow closer to him and in the process He will burn away our impurities.....He is not content to leave us in our weakness thus why He allows the dark soul of the night to grow us...This is where He can and will wean us from our idols if we are open to the dry times.. This is when He will take away all the places where we have pride, selfishness, envy, greed........ He will create NEW VIRTUES; within us. Through the darkness pride will become humility, greed becomes simplicity, wrath becomes contentment, luxury becomes peace, gluttony becomes moderation, envy becomes joy, and sloth becomes strength. We will never grow deeper with God unless God works passively in our soul by means of the dark night....Taken from the book: DEVOTIONAL CLASSICS
BY: Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith
Read Psalm 42 when you have time and meditate on God's word.....
In my dark soul of the night,
Robbie
