A couple of things occurred to me as I listened to the sermon this morning. First, is it a false dichotomy to say, “It’s either self or Spirit”? Is this is the choice we make as Christians in our walk with God. I am not sure. The apostles talk more of old self vs. new self (we are to take off the old self and put on the new self) but not in terms of self vs. Spirit. Not a good idea.
Second, frostbite. Why frostbite? Well, it’s cold outside and a person can get frostbite if exposed to the elements. But I was thinking in terms more of healing or recovering from frostbite. How we sometimes try and shortcut God when it comes to His work in our lives or we don’t understand why there is sometimes pain involved in healing.
I’ll have to examine how frostbite is treated to understand more about it. There might be some parallels between the treatment of frostbite and how we heal with God. How much pain is involved in healing frostbite? I can’t think it is too comfortable while something that was frozen begins to thaw and blod begins to flow again? If rewarming is too rapid, what happens? What happens if there is re-exposure too soon after thawing?
Back to the first idea, it’s just a plain bad idea to pit self against Spirit. God gave me a new self a new me empowered and enlivened by His Spirit. Now if by “self” we are referring to the “flesh” as Paul does in Galatians, that is a fine idea. The “flesh” wars against the Spirit.
February 19, 2007 at 9:23 pm
You’re of way above average intellect, and a darn good writer, too. So there.
The thought of blood flowing to a frozen limb is pretty prophetic.