The Inner Being

We always fall short, thank God for His mercy. I want to do this proverbs thing every day for the month, however, I am finding it increasingly difficult to given all the things I have to do. So is that it? Is that the end of the road? Not quite. See if this was something that really meant a lot to me, then I would really be doing it regardless of the time, I would be waking up earlier and going to sleep earlier just to make time to do it. It is obvious, we aren't all we crack ourselves up to be. We make promises we can't keep, commitments we can't see through, statements we don't follow through on. I am being pretty transparent with you right now and with every good reason, there are things we all committ to that for one reason or another we don't do. So is that it? Or is there a purpose behind it all? There is...

This has once again shown me just how little I really am and I how much more work I really need. God can speak to me all He wants about a matter, but it isn't until I get up and decide to internalize it and begin believing it that it is going to make a different. I can be forgiven and not feel forgiven, I can be loved and not feel loved. So many of us get stuck in this idea of feeling. We look for this happy go lucky feeling. While those do exist and they do come, we shouldn't sit around waiting for them. We can't, it isn't part of the whole faith not sight deal from 2 Cor 5:7. Sometimes if God tells us something, we just have to see it through, regardless of how we might feel about it.

All that being said, I wanted to share with you a devo someone sent me this morning. It was pretty awesome and for me, definitely spoke to me plenty. I pray it blesses you as well...

The Inner Man
by Ray Stedman

A devotion for March 12th

...he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being... (Ephesians 3:16b).

What is your inner being? Many take this to mean the soul, with its faculties of reason and emotion and will. But I don't think this is what Paul means here, because in 2 Corinthians 4 he gives us a clue about what he does mean when he says “the inner being.” There he says that “our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (4:16 NKJV). That is, for Christians there is something about us that is getting old, decaying and deteriorating; but there is also something about us that is getting more vital, increasing and becoming richer and deeper and stronger every day we live. And that is what he calls “the inner being.”
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Your soul grows old as well as your body. It is clear that the soul is part of our life linked with the outer person, which is perishing day by day.

But that is not the inner being. The inner being is the human spirit. It is here that God begins the work of recovery. Not in the realm of our feelings, but in what psychologists would call the realm of the subconscious, the deep-seated part of our life, the fundamental element of our nature. When you are really discouraged, really brokenhearted and have given up, your condition is often described as dispirited. That is an accurate term. Your fundamental nature is dissatisfied. It is not merely a question of temporary boredom. That would be in the realm of the soul. But this is something that touches the spirit, right at the deepest level of human life, and you find yourself filled with despair and indifference.

This is where the recovery must begin. And what the apostle tells us about here is the capability of the Creator himself our loving Father, to give us a fresh infusion of strength by His Spirit into our spirit, the inner being. In 1 Corinthians 12, speaking of believers, Paul says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, . . . and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (v. 13). That is what our human spirits are for—to drink of the Spirit of God so that we are refreshed and revitalized. Just as taking a drink refreshes your body, so drinking of the Spirit refreshes your spirit, at the deepest level of your life.

That is not the realm of feeling. We get so hung up in this process of spiritual recovery by always wanting an instantly good feeling. Relief will come, but it doesn't start there. It starts down at the level of the spirit and may be nothing more than some consciousness of reassurance that things are going to work out.

This beginning step is not your responsibility; it is God's. All that is necessary is that you ask Him for it. Paul prayed that these Ephesians might have this granted to them. When we ask on that level, God promises to give.

Thank You, Father, that I can come to You ask that You would strengthen me in the inner being, and that because of Your great love I trust that You will answer this cry of my heart.