Live in the Spirit Every Day!

Good morning, Happy Souls!

Bill Keller wrote a wonderful devotional today
that I highly recommend to you.  He has given
me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with
people you know as well.

This devotional reminds me of an experience I
had when I was 10 years old.  We were doing an
art project involving paper doilies.  I was
running late so I hadn't started yet.  Our
teacher, Mr. Hendricks, sternly told us not to
take the doilies ourselves.  He explained why.
The doilies stuck together and we would take
more than one. Then there wouldn't be enough
for everyone.

That made sense to me . . . until I found my-
self staying in at recess to get started and
Mr. Hendricks was nowhere in sight.  Other
students told me not to take the doilies. But
I thought I could tell the difference between
one and many. I peeled off one and got started.

Mr. Hendricks returned and asked me where I
had gotten the doily.  I fessed up and explained
that I hadn't made a mistake.  He checked me and
pulled off 7 extra doilies that I had taken and
now partially cut into.  Oops!

I realized then that I wasn't as good at this as
I thought.

That idea was later reinforced when my friend
Francine showed me the project she made from one
of the doilies that I had started cutting into.
Her's was 100 times better than mine . . . and
she had followed my lead because it already had
a cut in it.  Without my cut, she probably
would have made one that would have been 1000
times better.  Oops!

Anytime Jesus can show me where to go and what
to do, I'm going to be a lot better off.  I
don't do so well when I'm in charge.

Read on.

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL   FRIDAY JANUARY 27, 2006
( 1 Corinthians 15:31, Romans 8:4-13,
Galatians 5:16, Galatians 2:20)

This is the most important message you will ever hear
on living a victorious life in Christ.  I realized as
I prayed and prepared to write this message, that
this is going to be a very difficult one for most
people to hear.  In this day of motivational speakers,
positive mental attitude seminars where people are
whipped into an emotional frenzy by the glib-tongued
hope merchants of our day, left out has been the hard
truth that any success comes with a price.  Even many
of the preachers of our day have fallen into the trap
of the world by telling people how they can be
successful through Christ without also telling them
about the sacrifice that is required for that success.

The bottom line is success sells, sacrifice doesn't. 
People want to hear how to be successful, they don't
want to hear what it costs.  Today, I am going to
share with you the most important message you will
ever hear on living a victorious life in Christ.  It
is a message of success, but the key to this message
is sacrifice.  It is not a one-time sacrifice, it is
a DAILY sacrifice.  It is the ultimate sacrifice that
you can ever make, your very life.  Paul wrote to the
church at Galatia, "I have been crucified with Christ
and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."
(Galatians 2:20 NIV) The key to living a victorious
life in Christ is dying to self daily.

You see my friend, the motivational gurus like Tony
Robbins are selling you a message of false hope
since the core of their message is that YOU can do
it.  That flies in the face of what God's Word says
in John 15:5, "without me, you can do NOTHING!" 
The lie of the world is that you can do it.  The
Truth of God is that you can do it, THROUGH CHRIST! 
So the entire foundation of the message these people
are selling, and make no mistake about it, that is
what they are doing, selling,  is a lie.

The fact is, the greatest motivational book ever
written is the Bible.  If you want to be successful
in your business, read the Bible.  If you want to
be successful in your finances, read the Bible.  If
you want to be successful in your relationships
with others, read the Bible.  If you want to be
successful in your marriage, read the Bible.  If
you want to be successful in raising your
children, read the Bible.  If you want to have
peace, and joy, and an abundant life, read the
Bible.  If you want to know the purpose for your
life, read the Bible.  I could never figure out
why people spend hundreds, even thousands of
dollars on books, and tapes, and seminars, and
workshops, when all they are seeking is right in
God's Word!

Today, there are many preachers and Christian
speakers that have become Christian motivational
gurus.  They do what Tony Robbins and the
motivational speakers of the world do, only they
are at least using the Bible as their foundation. 
Where this new breed of Christian motivational
speakers are failing, is in telling people the
WHOLE story.  You see, everyone wants to hear how
to have lots of money, how to be successful in
their business or career, how to have a great
marriage, how to be a wonderful parent, how to
live each day with the peace, joy, and abundance
God's Word speaks of.  All of these things are
possible through Christ.  But what they choose to
leave out is the most important detail there is. 
All things are possible through Christ, IF YOU
DIE TO SELF DAILY SO JESUS IS IN CONTROL OF YOUR
LIFE!

Dying to self daily is what Paul spoke of so often. 
It is how we walk in the "spirit" and not in the
"flesh" as we are instructed in Romans Chapter 8
and Galatians Chapter 5.  The whole issue of dying
to self daily is the absolute key to living a
victorious life in Christ.  It literally means
that you have to die to self DAILY!  This is why
so many people who are saved, love the Lord, live
beneath their blessings and in constant turmoil. 
This is how people who know Christ as their Savior
end up committing adultery, cheat people, lie, get
in bondage to drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling,
shopping, greed, and anything else people become
enslaved to.  They don't die to self each day and
end up walking in the "flesh" and NOT the "spirit."

People wonder all the time how a pastor, a deacon,
an elder, someone in the leadership of God's church
could leave their wife  and run off with another
woman.  People wonder all the time how a Sunday
School teacher who loves the Lord could neglect her
children and family because of alcohol.  People
wonder how a businessman who is a pillar in his
local church, leads a men's Bible study, gives
generously to support the work of God in his community,
could be facing 10 years in prison for financial
crimes.  The answer is these people failed to die to
self each day and instead of walking in the "spirit"
they were walking in the "flesh."

There is probably no more critical a message I will
ever share with you in living a victorious life in
Christ than the one today.  All of the benefits in
God's Word exist and are available to those who
believe, but there is a price to pay and that price
is our very life surrendered, yielded to the Lord. 
It is a choice, an act, that nobody can force you
to commit.  Only you can do it.  The important thing
for you to hear today is that it is not something
you do just once and forget about.  It is something
that you must do DAILY!  EVERY DAY!  WITHOUT FAIL! 
Each morning when you wake up, you have to make the
conscious choice to die to self, to surrender your
life to Christ, and walk in the "spirit" instead of
the "flesh."

I love you and care about you so much.  The difference
between a person who knows the Lord as their Savior
living a defeated life and a victorious life, lies
in what I am sharing with you today.  Please, save
your money.  You don't need to waste it listening to
Robbins or the motivational speakers of the world lie
to you that you can do it on your own, and you don't
need spend it on books and tapes from preachers who
preach a feel good Gospel but forget to tell you
about the sacrifice involved.  The key to living a
victorious life in Christ lies in you waking up each
morning and making the conscious choice to die to
self and allow Christ to control your life.

The fact is, the Bible says that if you have asked
Christ into you heart and life by faith, it is no
longer your life, that it belongs to Him.  The
Word says we have been "bought with a price."  So
in essence, each day you are only giving the Lord
what already belongs to Him anyway.  Remember my
message last week on what really happens when we
get saved?  We are literally giving our life to
Christ.  It is no longer ours, but is now His.
The reality is, each morning when we wake up, we
have to make the choice to die to self so that
Christ can live within us during that day.  If we
don't do this each and every day when we wake up,
we will soon find ourselves walking in the "flesh"
and not the "spirit."

I will be praying for you today.    Praying that
you will sit down and read this message over and
over.  This is the meat and potatoes of the Word.
This is where the rubber meets the road in regard
to our Christian walk. This is the part that nobody
really wants to talk about since we love the
benefits of being saved, but we really don't want
to think about the price that Jesus paid or the
sacrifice we have to make each day.  You MUST think
about it since it is the difference between you
living a defeated life and living a victorious life. 
To live that victorious life in Christ, to walk in
His victory, you have to die to self each day so
that you are walking in the "sprit" and not the
"flesh" so that it is Christ, not you that lives.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

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(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

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May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell