From The Crucible (by Pastor Linda Pugsley)

Hey, Soldiers of the Lord—don’t forget…the battle is not yours, but the Lord’s. Any success in your spiritual growth is by His grace and grace alone! That doesn’t mean you don’t have work to do; you still must strive daily to suppress and put down your flesh (opinions, judgments, desires, thoughts, feelings and the like). They are the lower level of living and based in the sin nature, which always leads us far off course.

Instead of building ourselves up, we must decrease…not in a low self-esteem way…no, no, no! We must decrease that He might increase in us. With the entrance of Jesus inside, through the miracle of salvation, we inherit the nature of God. So when we “decrease”, that leaves the flow of the Spirit of God to come forth. And it comes forth less and less hindered from us, because we have purposely “decreased”. We can then live in faith, hope, and love…for that is the nature of God. What a success that is!

Not all of our growth and change is us training ourselves to a better way of living…but practicing dying to self and letting God come out unhindered. That is why He gets all the glory…the good stuff is really Him, because we’re gone! In our death to ourselves, real life comes forth. Thank you, Lord, there is hope for us all. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

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