Welcome to your dailyeword. This is Dorette Schaal, and I feel privileged to be able to encourage you each day to be the very best you, you can be. During the first part of this year, we are doing a series called Work It Out, about the disciplined path of grace in various areas of life. In an effort to grow deeper in love with Jesus, and deeper in our walk with God, we can get into better shape spiritually. I hope you are putting these ideas into practice, and are Working it Out in your daily life. Let’s get buff spiritually! Here is your dailyeword.
Have you heard this saying? I have plenty of will power, what I really need is won’t power! All of us have that same problem, and it is a result of sin in our world. We don’t want to sin, but the carnal flesh very often wants to say yes to sin, and overrides our spirit which is alive to God and is desperately telling us to take another path. Even Paul had the same issue. If anyone was a spiritual giant, he did write 2/3rd of the New Testament(!), it would be Paul. Clearly he knew sin was taken care of, but that doesn’t remove the will to sin. He showed us that sheer will power is not enough to overpower sin. That’s where grace comes in. A great way to understand that process is through the garden. Does the gardener get the credit for the harvest, or does God? That isn’t a trick question! They both do! It is a partnership. If the gardener didn’t put the seed in, God couldn’t do the miracle that takes place to make the seed produce. That is a great way to compare our part to God’s part when it comes to grace. We do our part, receive salvation and begin working out our salvation, and then God does his part by providing grace for each step of this path of grace we are walking on. It takes both, discipline and grace, and with His power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome!