September 1

It is almost as though there are two realities of life for most believers. There is the reality of what we aspire to be and to do as we live fully committed lives for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and there is the reality of the deadness of our actual day-to-day surrender to Him.

Unfortunately, the plane of our good intentions exceeds the plane of our performance. We disappoint ourselves daily and fall far short of our spiritual goals. How can we overcome the wretched sense of disappointment we feel when we let ourselves down?

The first step is to realize that God isn’t disappointed in us. He is forgiving and He has chosen to put our shortcomings along with our sins into His ‘Sea of Forgetfulness.’ God does not badger us with our broken expectations—we do that to ourselves. But HE does have a remedy for the burden of guilt that our disappointment with ourselves requires us to carry.

It is found in Galatians 5:16 where we are told to, “Walk in the Spirit, so you will not walk in the lusts and desires of the flesh.” To avoid human failure, we must walk in spiritual power! What we haven’t the capacity to accomplish on our own because our flesh is dead to true godliness, we can achieve through the power of the Holy Spirit within us that will raise us as it raised Jesus from the dead!