NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

July 26

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

I was telling my confidant and dear friend about all the things that I believe about myself that are negative –- and there is a long and nefarious list. On a bad day, even the thought that a different, healed and expansive life enveloped in holiness seems like a shaming thought.

Maybe that's why I love God's word so much, and appreciate knowing that God's grace not only saves but transforms.

I've learned that experiencing the emotion and belief of shame -- that feeling that I’m broken beyond repair, suitable for being called a long list of negative adjectives -- is more a form of arrogance than true humility.

It's also a stumbling block to transformation. If I can get stuck in the self-pity party of feeling "less than," then I certainly don't have time to explore my potential and embrace God's prevailing purposes as a roadmap for right living.

When I get specific about my self-seeking ways of how I have actually behaved in an uncaring manner toward God, self and others –- I create a list that illuminates the defects of character that I'm willing to acknowledge –- which frees me to invite God to have his way with me.

As our devotional days continue, we'll continue our discussion about specific examples of harming choices. It's my prayer that this may jog a memory, stir an insight or hasten a moment of clarity –- so that each of us can be more specific about how we have lived an unholy life. But we won't stop with the confession –- we will invite God to heal, redeem and restore to us the joy of our salvation.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 19-21

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