The Good That I Would Do
Romans 7:19
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
We all know we need three square meals a day to sustain a healthy lifestyle. We know we need at least seven to nine hours of sleep to function at our best level. We even understand that being active for at least thirty minutes a day will help our brains and bodies. So the question is, why don't we do these things? The answer is simple, our flesh.
You snooze, you lose. The concept is straightforward but accurate. If you consider the snooze button on an alarm clock, there are no limits to how many times you can hit it. You could lightly sleep throughout the entire morning. To some, that sounds amazing; I would be nervous about losing so many precious hours of productivity. When the flesh takes over, devotions and disciplines seemingly fall by the wayside. Paul, the author of Romans, was by no means lazy. He did not snooze away. Paul stands out as one of the people I admire most in the Bible for his leadership skills and his thorough letters. Even Paul battled with the pull of the flesh. After his conversion, he understood the value of words, his time, and his life.
Value: relative worth, merit, importance
When you value a concept or a skill, it slowly becomes grafted to who you are. Do you have someone you admire who is phenomenal at what they do? Is there a musician or a public speaker who makes your jaw drop every time they are in the zone? How do you think people reach this level of personal success? They place passion and value into whatever they are striving to achieve. When you make up in your mind that something holds real value, you are not going to misplace it or neglect it because it is unique. If you value daily devotions, you will not snooze on them or procrastinate and proclaim you will double up some other time. That time will never come. Prayer, devotion, outreach, and ministering are all wrapped up in the good we should do so it should be held with the highest esteem. You have the same hours in the day as everyone else around you, but yet, you just cannot find the time. You inevitably set yourself up for failure when you give less than your best to The Lord and others. Place value in everything you do for The Kingdom.
