Today's Devotional

January 6, 2005

Subject:  My Biggest Problem Is Me

James 4:7a - "Submit yourselves therefore to God..."

You remember the old song, "It's not my brother nor my sister but it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.  Not my father nor my mother but it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer."  That was pretty much the song but as life goes on I could add a few more bars and say, "It's not my job nor my friends but it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.  Not my boss nor that lady down the street whose always spreading rumors about me and putting her trash in front of my door step and telling everybody my business, but it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer."  And that's the truth on everything that we go through.  

Can you think of one situation in your life that frustrated you that could not have been God working it to refine you?  No.  The truth is He is using everything to make you "better."  Better here means more like Him and that is definitely better.  In order to build the fruit of the spirit in your life, He's got to prune that fruit of the natural.  In my life God immediately convicts me when I hear myself saying negative things about people.  The minute I call someone stupid, it hits.  The minute I say that someone is beyond help, it hits.  The minute I say that someone just can't be talked to or dealt with, it hits.  In reality, none of those things are true and it simply shows me that I have a problem.

Consider it.  The world really isn't the problem, the problem is that I can't seem to submit to God the way that I need to 24/7.   That's when I have a problem with the world.

Carlen