Day 140: Transformation by God

"These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.  For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error."  2 Peter 2:17-18

I found this message to be harsh, but it is an important reminder for us and how to live.

We all have a host of temptations that attempt to rule over us every day.  Sometimes, we overcome them; other times, we are overcome - thus is life.  In addition to being overcome by temptations, we will go out of our way to justify ourselves by judging all of those around us for everything we can imagine.  We will start to speak great words that are just empty.  When we do that, though, we become empty wells or weak clouds.  We give up all control over our lives to whatever temptation that comes our way.

Now, this might sound like a dead end, but that's not the case.  Sure, we can become like an empty well or a mere cloud, but we were all created in God's image.  God is working in all of us.  We don't have just one option to give our control over to temptations.  Instead, we can hand the control over to God, the expression of perfect, unconditional love in our lives.

When we try to talk our way through our temptations and our sins, we only become further enslaved by our sins.  However, when we start to adopt everything that God teaches and tells us, we can start to transform our lives.  It might start with just words.  Rather than deceive ourselves with our own words, we can speak the truths that we learn through God.  Once we speak them, we will start to live them.  Once we live them, we inch closer to God.  As we go further down our journey, we will start to become much more like God.  We need to allow for God to do the work in our bodies so that we can continue to heal.