What if you could Restart?

Feeling Stuck or Bogged Down?   Sometimes as we strive to live our faith we can feel stuck or get bogged down? When something similar happens with our computer or smartphone, a reboot does wonders! So, “What if you could Restart?”   1) While God’s law is good,  it actually held us captive because it kept showing how we have failed to be what we were meant to be.  2) When God’s law meets our sinful flesh, it actually energizes our sinful desires. This works in a variety of ways.                 a. Magnification:                  i. We magnify what we think about. If we think about what not to do, we magnify what not to do.                 ii. If we focus on the law which shows how we fail, we magnify our guilt and shame.                iii. If we focus on the law and are able to follow certain parts of it well, we are susceptible to pride.                b. Complication:                 i. When we think too hard about what is meant to flow naturally, we make it complicated. Try thinking about breathing. It becomes difficult.  3) The problem with trying to overcome what’s wrong in us by our own strength is that we’re trying to overcome our sinful flesh with our sinful flesh.  4) But through Jesus’ death, we died to that old way of the law, of sin and trying to do it ourselves. We’ve been restarted to live a new way!  5) We now live by the Spirit, the One who gives us faith to believe the promises of God. Believing the promises is eating the fruit that gives us a new life!   7.4.21 Message from Cottage Grove  Pastor Nate Abrahamson