Day 48.......New Perspective

I am reading a book by Elizabeth George, A Woman's Walk with God, Growing in the fruit of the Spirit. The first two chapters offer me a new perspective on living in the Spirit, in that it will automatically yield abiding in and fulfilling Gods laws and statues. Sometimes I mistakenly try to live by the law and think," ok, follow those rules", however if I don't read my bible daily and pray, the Holy Spirit won't be able to direct me in how to follow His laws.
For instance, this new perspective affects the discipline of getting healthy. If I, in obedience to God's law of taking care of my body, lock my thinking on ME, my body, my health, my weight, my this, or my that, I could easily fall into making my discipline a higher priority than God, which is idolatry. By trying to follow a law without the Holy Spirit I could easily break another law, which creates confusion and frustration, which is not Gods plan.  In contrast if I recognize that God is disciplining me to get healthy, then my trust, my hope, my desire go only to Him for His help and His voice in the process. Whats great is that the Holy Spirit is gentle, encouraging and won't frustrate or confuse me, it's even okay to fail, He forgives and gives me the strength to start fresh.
I know this may seem like a silly concept when it's applied to weight loss, but it is a biblical principle that applies to anything we are called to do. If God is saying,

Ephesians 5:22

22  Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

which is a very hard commandment, and if you try it without the Holy Spirit it will not work out the way God intended, but if you yield to the Holy Spirit (who, by the way, knows your perticular situation with your husband), He will walk you through the perfect way to fulfill this commandment. It will be difficult, you may fail, but God is merciful and gracious to us. He wants us to continually walk through the process with Him.


What is important is that if you hear the Holy Spirit, test His voice it will NEVER point you in a direction that is not a commandment in the bible. The Holy Spirits job is to help us fulfill the commandments, laws, statutes, not to do the opposite, if you hear something that goes against Gods word, it is not the Holy Spirit. Pray and get confirmation in the Bible always. I say this because it breaks my heart to hear prisoners that murdered, kidnapped, molested, stole, ect. say that God told them to do it. What? The voice in their head obviously was not God, the Holy Spirit or Jesus. Who else is there, the Devil. He is the great deceiver. Please, don't get deceived.

Daily Food Journal
(page taken from Weight Watchers journal)