By what spirit

Can you feel the war of the spirits in your life?

As soon as it begins to get colder in Portland land the fog really comes in. There are so many morning now when I drive my daughter to school through the pea soup. Sometimes visibility is reduced to a couple hundred feet and sometimes its seems its only to the front of the van. Sometimes I feel like my spiritual life is just about as clear.

Do you have the days when the temptation to go the wrong way with life and decisions just feels so strong? The days when it feels easier to stay in the house and watch TV or surf the internet. Why in the world would I want to get out and exercise or interact with any other human being in the world? Yet on the other side you really want to get out and actually do something productive with the day and know you would actually feel better about life if you could.

In Job chap 26, Job asks his advice spilling friends how their words are helpful to anyone around them, if in any way what they are saying is building up those who are weak. Finally he asks by what spirit are you speaking these "words of wisdom." This begs the question for me. By what spirit am I speaking today.

The are both at work in me - the spirit of God and the spirit of the age. In Christ its no long I who sin but the sin within me it is also no longer I who live but Christ who lives with in me. It's something like being multiple personality disorder or something. It is truly confusing at times. When I do the things I don't want to do and don't do the things that I want to do. As Paul would say who can save me from this body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This has a two fold meaning for me. For one when I surrender my life to Christ I can live by the power of his spirit in my life. The second meaning is, when I fall I am so thankful that Jesus has given me the amazing gift of forgiveness and through him I can come back into relationship with God. I am reminded of the thorn in Paul's flesh which God had not chose to take away from Paul. The answer Paul is given? My grace is enough.

Thanks be to God his grace is enough for anything we run ourselves into and thanks be to God he that is in me, Christ, is greater than he who is in the world. So today can be a good day, I love the way Christ works and the way the fog clears from my mind as I seek him.

May we live lives by the power of the Holy Spirit in all we say and do. And when we fall may we run into the arms of grace.