Oceans in the Desert

By Kathi Pelton

Yesterday was a bad day for me! After a glorious evening on Friday night I woke up and was almost immediately plunged into an “all round” bad day. Yep— they come to all of us.

I’d say it was merely just one of those days that you hope won’t be an entry in the journal of your life but I had to look with the eyes of the Spirit to gain understanding about what made it so bad.

As I woke up this morning my first thought was, “Just shake off the dust, lay it at the feet of Jesus and enter into thanksgiving.” I had to refocus my thoughts, my emotions and my meditations on thing above! This is where that unshakable joy is taken hold of and pulled into our shakable emotions. When bad days come to shake your emotions— that is when we must find the unshakable foundation and truths of God. That is what defines our lives and that is what stabilizes and realigns the strongholds of our flesh with the stability of His Spirit.

We cannot always change circumstances but we can change our response to those circumstances. We need to understand that usually what needs to be realigned and brought back to the unshakable care of Jesus is our emotions and our flesh.

Whether you are a someone who gets sad, or angry, or anxious or melancholy…it doesn’t matter. The area that you are being “tossed around in is your flesh!” Yesterday my flesh (I tend to get really sad) was taking the lead! Although it happens to all of us from time to time— we cannot remain in that place because flesh driven emotions will never lead you to wise decisions or clear conclusions. They will control you with extremes (highs or lows) and begin to define the journey of your life according to your circumstances and soul.

Raw emotions will tell you to make vows or permanent decisions regarding a temporary problem. Most of the world is living according to their souls and living out the steps that are controlled by their flesh. This is why we see such chaos in our streets and why our neighborhoods are filled with so many broken families.

I believe it is Bill Johnson who says that he allows himself only three minutes to get over an offense. Some days you may have to do that numerous times but we must learn to quickly submit our flesh (emotions) to the Spirit that lives within us and allow Him to help you to take every thought captive.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6

When you find yourself “waging war according to the flesh” (such as I did a good majority of my day yesterday), it is time to ask for divine power to overcome and destroy the “strongholds of your flesh” (arguments and lofty opinions) with the knowledge of God!

It is there that we take every emotional thought captive and submit them to the obedience of Christ. Just because you think you’re right does not mean that you are making righteousness (right) decisions. There is right and there is righteous and sometimes you have to lay down your rights to walk in righteousness.

On those “emotions gone wild” days, stop and pray those verses from 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 and ask the Spirit of God to help you to take every thought captive and to bring His divine power to help you to overcome personal strongholds. Otherwise you will just be waging war with flesh which will lead you into more flesh. Especially when another person is involved— two strongholds of flesh will never produce a righteous outcome. This is why we have so many divisions in families and friendships; it is mankind waging wars according to the flesh merely producing and fortifying strongholds.

In conclusion— do not let bad days define your journey! Your bad days need to be training days of how to take every thought captive through the divine power that overcomes strongholds. We ALL have strongholds that need to be overcome. They may manifest differently but until we are given glorified bodies we must learn to tame the flesh.

If you had a bad day then it’s time to practice taking every thought captive and seeing it draw you into the posture of “complete obedience.” If your bad day involves another person then remember that it is not them against you or right against wrong— it’s flesh against spirit and we must render discipline against the flesh until it submits to the obedience of Christ. Then the knowledge of God will lead you into all truth and overcome strongholds. The divine solution is found in the submission to His Spirit. Make today good by using the weapons of the Spirit! This is where fruitfulness will be restored.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

Let fruitfulness define your day!

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