THINK VICTORY! Simple Obedience

SIMPLE OBEDIENCE

“ … and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5One of the resources that I use in my quiet time with the Lord is a little devotional book written by Fenelon. It was written over 400 years ago, but his insights are so timely and right on. As I have been meditating on the subject of “taking every thought captive,” his words today were right on:

“Encourage peace. Become deaf to your over-active imagination. Your spinning imagination will harm your health and make your spiritual life very dry. Don’t worry yourself sick for no good reason. Inner peace, and the sweet presence of God, are chased away by RESTLESSNESS. How can you hear God speak, in His soft and tender way, when your hurried thoughts create a whirlwind within? Be quiet, and He will soon be heard. Allow yourself one excess: to be excessively obedient.

You ask for comfort, but you do not see that you have been led to the edge of the fountain and refuse to drink. Peace and comfort are to be found only in simple obedience. Be obedient without a lot of talk about how obedient you are. Your will soon find rivers of living water flowing within you. If you believe much, you will receive much. If you believe nothing, you will receive nothing, and continue to listen only to the stories your empty imagination tells you.

You dishonor true love by supposing that it is concerned about the INSIGNIFICANT things that continually occupy your attention. Satan is transformed into an angel of light. He assumes the form of a legalistic love, and an overly-sensitive conscience. You should know by now the troubles he will lead you into if he convinces you to be a Pharisee. REJECT HIS ADVANCES.If you allow yourself to have only simple and uncomplicated desires, you will be more pleasing to God than if you died the death of a hundred martyrs. Turn your anxieties to the fact that you have delayed in offering this sacrifice of simplicity to God. Can true love hesitate when the Well-Beloved asks?”

Adapted from THE SEEKING HEART – by Fenelon

Are you practicing SIMPLE OBEDIENCE today? That mind of ours can do dangerous things. Today is the day to start taking EVERY THOUGHT captive to the obedience of Christ.

Great quote: “God means what He says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it – no matter what.” Hebrews 4:12 from THE MESSAGE