Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: RESOLUTION (01/07/16)
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TITLE: Opinionated | Previous Challenge Entry
By PamFord Davis
01/13/16 -
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Though New Year’s Eve firework bangs have silenced, a friend asked what resolutions I had made. I had made zilch, nada; saw no need to set myself up for failure.
Tar and feather me if you must.
My heart races at the prospects of drastic change; yet, I do admit positive alterations are a good idea at any time of the year.
Yup, I’m set in my ways, downright opinionated.
Interesting, isn’t it? The Good Book contains good examples of man’s resolutions…
“I have made a covenant with my eyes.
How then could I look at a young woman (Job 31:1 HCS)?”
Job made a spiritual resolution; he would not look with the intent to lust after women.
Ponder the resolution of Prophet Jeremiah…
“If I say, ‘I won’t mention Him
or speak any longer in His name,’
His message becomes a fire burning in my heart,
shut up in my bones.
I become tired of holding it in,
and I cannot prevail (Jeremiah 20:9 HCS).”
God given messages of impending judgment were difficult to proclaim to the populace. In futility, Jeremiah had set a course to seal his lips.
I discern my dilemma in unabashed truth shared by Apostle Paul.
“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin’s power. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin (Romans 7:14-25 HCS).”
Paul failed miserably in efforts to keep his resolutions.
Hooray! He found rescue from sin’s bondage through captivity to Christ. In submission, he attained success.
Lord, restrain me if I so much as consider making a New Year’s resolution at the onset of 2017!
“For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose (Philippians 2:13 HCS).”
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Great job!
God Bless~