Learning How to Process

Romans 7 : 18 – 20, For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. -NKJV

After we accept Jesus as our Savior, there is a process that we undergo where the Lord begins a work in our hearts. Our Father wants us to grow beyond “being saved”. He wants us to become Christ-like. In our natural understanding and strength this process will seem impossible.  

Nevertheless, God knows what He’s doing and how to get us to the place in our life so that He can perform His good pleasure in our hearts. Paul teaches in Philippians that God will see to completion the work that He has begun in us. He also writes in the same letter that it is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure.

It is at this point in our walk with Christ that our faith will take on another dimension in our lives. As a Christian, we have placed faith in the work of Christ to save us, but after conversion, we must use our faith in Christ so that God’s Spirit can perform God’s work in us.

Learning how to walk by faith will require that we undergo a challenging process so that we are able to trust God with our lives and not just our soul. It’s difficult to fathom how we can trust the Lord with eternal security and at the same time, struggle to trust Him with our life in this temporal world.

Now, we have arrived at the point of this devotion. As Christians, who truly want to live for God, we can also struggle with feelings of inadequacy. We can also battle within ourselves between what we know we should do and what we want to do. There are many believers who are living each day of their life at this place in the process of being transformed.

While we undergo the process of being transformed into sons and daughters of God, we must reconcile what we want in life with what God wants for us. We must learn to correctly process how we are to allow God’s will for us to supersede what we want for ourselves. Even though Jesus is the Prince of peace and lives in us, we can have anything but peace as we war between what we need to do and what we want to do.

If this describes where you are spiritually, know that the war will cease the moment you call out to the Lord and surrender to Him. You see, the battle to become Christ-like doesn’t belong to us. It’s not our works that will perfect us, but it is God’s grace that will empower us to die to self that we can please God. As you surrender the battle in you to the Lord and allow Him to work in you both to will and do His good pleasure, you will receive and walk in peace. Give the battle to Him and receive grace and peace.

Pastor Asa Dockery

 

 

 

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