Hoffco, no matter what: you are noticing God's unconditional love, and delivering it as conditional. It seems you are noticing self in the midst and your commands as per what interpretation you have learned from others and self. And this is good for you to be shown truth over error, for if you did not have the want to serve God, you would not come to understand God's perfect love just for you personally
You asked:
are you in any role of leadership in a church? Are you single? Do you have to rule over anyone? How can you be so, laid back, and just let things roll as they will, and not take charge of your life and make things happen. How do you just let God do everything and just roll with the punch, all the time. You give the impression that your christian life just "happens"and you don't do any thing to direct your life. You just "let go and let God" do all the work. To me, that I so contrary to what I am told to do in the Bible, to take charge and live life under God direction,
Hoffco, I was in battle as you are. I kept fighting the good fight, even tried to not sin, and all I found was me sinning and arguing all the more the harder I tried. Always upset over not doing something that I did not want to do
[h=3]Romans 7:14-17[/h]New International Version (NIV)
[SUP]14 [/SUP]We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. [SUP]15[/SUP]
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.[SUP]16 [/SUP]
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. [SUP]17 [/SUP]As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
Romans 7:5 For when we were in
the realm of
the flesh,
the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.
Romans 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
What binds us? is it not Law, literally any Law I have put on me to do, I have put undo stress on me to do it, such as my wife has to obey me, or my Children and so on and so forth it goes. Will my wife always obey me? Yes I am married, children grown.
Will I you or anyone here on earth in unredeemed flesh obey God perfectly ever? Is our flesh made to do that?
Is Paul showing us the difference of walking in flesh commands and Spirit of God worship? Does or has God come through Christ to release us from stress and worry?
Matthew 6:27 Can any one of you by
worrying
add a single hour to your
life?
Luke 12:25 Who of you by
worrying can
add a single hour to your
life?
Does not being under Law any Law put one in worry and stress, bring forth doubt, and arguing, complaining, not seeing the future yet trying to bring it about as good by doing good? Is this not what the world teaches?
Okay to let go and let God? It is a final decision to say to God:
I give up God, I have tried to do your will, be like Jesus as best I can, and I can't do it. I get mad, frustrated yell, scream, try to control others and show them your commands and no one listens. I am done Father, "I" can't do it. It is killing me, I want to do it right but continue to fail, I am and have stood the good fight have "I" not?
Yes Hoffco, we are in a war of the battle of flesh-self and the world to do what is right, when no flesh can be perfect, It can act perfect and try to be, but it just simply can't and God waits for us to give up this battle of flesh against Spirit trying to behave, because it can't as you are so well finding out, wanting to be accepted not seeing God has (past tense) already accepted you in the beloved. (Eph. 1:13) Christ Jesus, it is so not easy to fathom that God through Son did do it all for you, so for you to be able to walk in the newness of life in God's Spirit by the resurrected Christ, not the flesh Christ. It is a gift to you from God personally in God's Spirit.
We are taught in our flesh to not give up, to fight the good fight, never raise our white flag to the enemy are we not?
And so we get so caught up in the war and war and war and war, never seeing the war as already won by God through Son. We say we see this and turn right around and do not love like God does, by working to keep it, and then what comes? loneliness, frustration, not feeling like you belong, sin and failure after failure, anger madness and sin again, something you did not want to do we do, being put under Law whether the Mosaic or our own wanting to be perfect.
So I know you have heard give up, but our flesh does not want to, it wants to be noticed, loved and cherished, knows this is not possible yet continues to want the control to make it. You know we fail, no problem, we ask God to forgive us all over again and again and again, yet we continue to do that thing we just don't want to do, and just can't see why?
It is because we our own flesh desire is in the way of God doing God's work through us, that God wants to do through us but won't unless we agree with God to do the works of righteousness through us. I call this an exchanged life my life, for his life to live through us, no longer just in us.
Here is a sight that might help about being co-crucified with Christ, check it out if it is put on your heart
Praying all this might help in your walk to know such an amazing loving Father
F. J. Huegel:Bone of His Bone.Table of Contents
[h=1]THE CHRISTIAN LIFE A PARTICIPATION NOT AN IMITATION[/h] [h=2]CHAPTER I[/h]
0NE cannot make a study of the New Testament without experiencing something of the nature of a shock, in view of the glaring difference between the Christian life as we are wont to live it, and the ideal of the Master. The disheartening incongruities, and the grievous contradictions are so painfully evident, that even those who have only a superficial knowledge of the Saviour's Word-yea, one dare say, even those who have never looked into the pages of the New Testament-are shocked. What little faith they may have, is shaken.
When one holds up before the picture of the Christian life as set forth by the Apostles, that which today goes under the name, one staggers. The emaciated body of a dying friend-not to say his corpse-could not stand in more violent contrast with him who in the days of health and vigour walked at our side.
It is not my object to pick to pieces the modern Christian. I have no quarrel with the Church. I am not pretending to play the role of an iconoclast.