Spirit vs Baggage

"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all".

Today while listening to the DailyAudioBible.com, we covered the following scriptures:1 Samuel 10:1-11:15,John 6:43-71, Psalm 107:1-43, Proverbs 15:1-3.

The lesson that was taught after the reading really touched me, so I thought I would share.

“Saul is trying to sort thru the changes in his life once the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. A new heart was given to him the scriptures tell us. This relates to our own lives today. We all at one point or another, feel the calling of the Lord in our lives to rise up into something new, into who we were meant to be- it’s there all the time. It’s deeply planted into us and the assaults of life force us back and we have to contend for what we are going to become in Christ. So much of the time the wounds of life have us settling that we are “less” than what we had hoped or we are “less” than what we thought we should be. There is a dull ache within us-always there. We lay in bed at night and we think thoughts like this “There has got to be more than THIS!” That is because there IS more, but normally we don’t know how to approach the “more” that there IS. We fill it with all kinds of distractions, obsessions, addictions…we are looking for life that we are meant to live. We are created in the image of GOD. There is something deep within us that is screaming for THAT kind of life.

So Saul…he’s the one. Samuel has already prophesied over him. But to bring it all together and prove it true, Israel comes together and chooses by lot and it comes right down to Saul’s family and then comes right down to Saul, but Saul isn’t there- he isn’t present. So the people are asking, “is there somebody else?” the person who is chosen king, what is going on?…and the word of the Lord says that Saul is hiding in his “baggage”.

How often is that our story? We are invited to rise up and assume the life we are created to live. But we are hiding in the “baggage”.

I love this prayer that they prayed over everyone who was listening. This is my prayer for you and me.

Our Heavenly Father, we want to be done with the “baggage” because it is “baggage”-it is dead weight. What has gone before us is in our past. What is our story without you is done. The wounds of life, the terrible decisions that we have made, the terrible things that have been done to us, the things that have framed our lives but have also given us very narrow parameters to live in because that is the only place we feel safe. So we construct this personality, this character around where we feel safe. It is all informed by the bad things that have happened to us. This hasn’t been informed that we are created in Your image and that it is You who lives in us. It’s been formed by the assaults of life. That is something we need to repent of. We repent that we have allowed the injustice of the things done to us and the things we have done to dictate who we are meant to be. We repent because it is Your life that we seek. As believers we are to “die” to ourselves and be raised up in Christ. That means everything that we were is dead and buried and when we go into the baptismal river and go beneath the water and come back up, we have died to the old and become a new person in Christ. Old things have passed away and all is new. We embrace the life we were created to live-living with the life force of the Holy Spirit inside rather than us trying to arrange for a life in a way that will never work. Come Holy Spirit lead us into all truth. Lead us AWAY from the “baggage”. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.