Daily Devotional – I’m Normal.™ I AM Ministries
“To promote Godly living in a culture committed to destroying it”
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Life or Death Management
In the business world, companies use many different styles of management. At the personal level, we all choose a management style for our lives. Christians have a significant advantage in this area because God has given us a life management system that works, provided we elect to follow His instructions. He also gives us s failure option, and the differences between the two systems and their strategies are enormous and eternal.
God gives us a choice to make every day, even every moment of every day as to how we will live our lives. We must decide whether we will live according to the flesh or live according to the Spirit. Ask yourself: Are you being controlled by your own self-centered flesh, or are you controlled the Holy Spirit of God and living a Christ-centered life?
In the Book of Romans, Paul gives us invaluable insight for choosing our life management system. He tells us there are two predicted outcomes, each one associated with one of these two life management systems. Each leads to and produces in you a different result, if you yield to it.
“For those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5-6).
Life…or…Death? The choices seem simple enough. If one controlling disposition leads to death and the other leads to life, you would think the choice would be a “no brainer”! But, as most of us have discovered, it doesn’t quite work that way. Most of us spend a considerable portion of our lives living in rebellion to God’s normal ways.
Unfortunately, walking according to the flesh often seems to be the path of least resistance. It seems to be the natural, comfortable, and convenient way to live. After all, it seems normal because most other people are living that way and to live by any other method would make us appear strange or peculiar. Therefore, we constantly yield to the flesh and the end result is death.
A life-long pattern of yielding to the flesh is a sure signal that a person has never been “Born of the Spirit of God”, and it ends tragically in eternal death. Jesus tried to warn the world when He told us, “Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew (7:13).
On the other hand, walking according to the Spirit is quite unnatural and uncomfortable for us. It is contrary to everything in us to yield up control of our lives to the Holy Spirit of God. And yet, when we do, He leads us to real life. Those who are born of the Spirit are living in victory, but they are in the minority and will always be, just as Jesus told us, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the Way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:14).
God tells us in His Holy Word how to live a normal life. God tells us we have two unique and contrasting choices for our life management system. We can manage our lives by yielding to the flesh, which leads to death, or we can choose to walk in the Spirit, which leads to life.
Which disposition of life controls you? Are you walking according to the flesh or according to the Spirit? Are there flesh patterns in your life that yield up the fruit of death, or is the Holy Spirit in control of you completely? It is normal and recognizable to walk in the Spirit. Which life management system will you choose today?
In His love and service,
Jeff Myers
A servant of Jesus Christ
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