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"THE CHALLENGE" Monday Morning Blog - 10/3/2011

Eggs, cheese, bacon, home fries and toast are on order. I'm sipping a cup of dark roast as I write. My mind and heart are full (unlike my stomach).I mean that my God has been filling my heart and mind with deep issues of life that are causing me to be challenged. It is necessary I make changes and choices that coincide with what I am being confronted with.

All too often I read the Scriptures and see the words but they are or become distant. I leave the words in the closed book when I am expected to make them part of who I am (or am to become). For example, the 1st ten chapters of Acts are extremely full of confronting issues that are there to challenge my heart with deep spiritual issues. I will simply point out one. I am a spiritual being (because of Christ in me) but I live in the natural realm. Acts chapters 1-10 reveal many Christ followers who experienced God's amazing power ... all because they were seeking, craving, living in the strength of the Holy Spirit. They, too lived in the natural realm but the power of the Almighty was alive and active in them. I am challenged today. I am about to walk away from this chair and table into the surroundings of the natural realm. But I endeavor to do so as a spirit-led renewed creation in Christ! Already the things that would excite the natural are being substituted by the Holy Spirit of God who loved me enough to die for me. The eggs and bacon are long gone. I've consumed 2 large cups of dark roast. Enough for the physical to manage. Now, Lord, give me what I need for the spiritual to not only manage but excel!

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