Christian Devotional – January 11, 2017

Over the past several days we’ve learned several things about purpose and God’s purpose in our lives. So why do we not just jump up and do the purpose that God has for us? Why aren’t we busy fulfilling all of God’s purpose in our lives? Read Romans chapter 7.

There are so many things that push and pull for our attention and often, we don’t even realize the war that is going on inside of us. We say we want to please God and do the things that He asks of us, but then we end up doing the exact opposite. We want to do good, but we fail. How does this happen? Because as much as we say we want to follow and obey God, we have an enemy that is set on making us fail. Satan loves to see believers become ineffective in their witness. If he can’t stop us from professing Jesus Christ as Lord, then he is sure going to work to stop us from telling anyone else about it. He’s also going to work very hard to stop us from living in the daily victory that God has promised us.

Plus, our own sinful nature is also against us. The things that come “naturally” to us are the things that are against God. God had to save us from ourselves, but we have to daily make the decision to cast aside our own desires. Otherwise, we’ll end up just like Paul here in these passages, doing the things that we hate and not doing the things that He desires for us to do.

We nay know our purpose, but unless we are surrendering daily our own desires, we will constantly be caught up in this battle inside ourselves. What has God given us to do? Will we lay down our own desires to see it done?