Day 261- Let Go

Daily Reading

Romans 5-6

🎥 Video  

Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

📝 Reflection 

Romans 6:19-22 

“Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.”

Faith is not only a gift it is a process of letting go of what you think you know or what makes ‘sense’ in your normal humanness. Paul also understands this and uses analogies like slavery to help his audience understand.  As humans we naturally have a punitive relationship with life, ourselves and each other. Our version of love is conditional. Know matter how much we think it is unconditional, it isn’t. The closest we get is maybe for our children, but even then we treat each other better when people are behaving according to our standards and expectations. 

What Jesus came and did for us, taught us and role modeled breaks this paradigm. It is mind blowing. It does not compute in our worldview, it does not compute to our ego. You can’t earn God’s love ❤️. Period. Paul reinforces this with this verse in “Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.”  He is speaking in language and with knowledge and understanding that the audience of the time and the average reader can understand. He uses punitive/earning language because that is what we understand, because it is how we think.

We in modern times have learned a lot more about psychology, brain science and why we think and make decisions the way we do. With that in mind we are not being asked to put our new knowledge aside as we read this beautiful book of truth and wisdom. I think that is a lot of the resistance to believing and faith is that we think we are being asked to let go of knowledge and science.  The analogy came to my mind as I am a coach in the ‘recovery’ world. There is new information that is helping many people in this space and it is much different than the traditional 12 step/disease model of addiction. This does not mean that the 12 step and disease model does not help or that the two can’t be blended or that it can’t be updated. Words like powerless and disease are used and that actually prevents many from utilizing the program. Stating that people are the problem and defective. When in fact it is quite the opposite, the brain is so powerful that we need to respect it. 

The approach which ever you take is to get the person to make the choice to give up the behavior and embrace a sober lifestyle. The early developers of the 12 step approach had evidence that showed that that people seemed to have no control when they were drinking and the best path was abstinence. Now we have a lot more science that explains why this happens. It doesn’t make the outcome and the choice that people need to make any different. But many now willingly engage with abstinence with these new approaches because the message is much more empowering. 

When you have a habit in place our brain is so powerful that it feels like we are a slave to that behavior. Throw in extra desires, temptations, the need to belong and be loved by your fellow humans and we are talking definitively being a slave to a lot of ‘sin’ in our life. We have to be really careful about what behaviors we engage in regularly because we might be volunteering for bondage and hardship to shift gears. But we don’t know what we don’t know. We used language and understanding that we know at the time. 

Here is what happens when we don’t know; often we think and know what the better choice might be but our brains are so powerful that it might make it really hard to make that choice in the moment. Then we beat ourselves up and call ourselves weak etc… Will power, and knowing something academically is not always enough. But when we know that we are loved unconditionally and we can let go of the shame and guilt, it frees our brains energy to put towards a better choices, it has more motivation and reward. Ultimately humans are tuned into WIIFM - what’s in it for me! Love is a strong motivator, unconditional love is the ultimate. To experience it will change a person from the inside out, it will cause scales to drop from your eyes, it will free you from being a slave to your desires of the moment. 

So the point and the essence of Pauls message is still as true today as it was back then. But we can also use what we know about how powerful our brains are and that we need to respect and be very careful of the behavior that we engage in. The evidence and the consequences speak for themselves. When we step out in faith and let go of how our ego would have us behave and we choose behaviors that are in line with love, non judgement of ourselves and others, and accept that we are loved despite what others and ourselves telling us that we don’t deserve it, we treat others with the same grace and mercy life goes much better for us. Our joy increases, we being to experience agape love vs. our limited human love, this is heaven on earth, and the only way to experience it is to let go and believe, do and receive. 

“Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

Romans 5:2-5 NLT

 

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

How does this help your understanding of God's love. How does it help you let go of an earning and score keeping mentality that your brain want to keep you and others a slave to?

📖Tomorrows Reading

 Romans 7

Coaching Opportunity

There are still a few spots left for the October 2022 Inaugural OWN IT! For Good! group & 1:1 coaching opportunity. Let's make 2023 the year of YOU by spending the last quarter of 2022 laying a solid foundational mind set! The world needs what only you have to offer! Give yourself the best gift ever, the best version of you is ready to rise & shine!

Book your free📞Wake Up Call today to learn if this is what you have been waiting for!  

If you have stuck with me this far, then you are not reading this by accident, I believe God has a plan for you and is calling you forward!😉🤩

CONNECT WITH ME

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/felecia.b.holmes (personal)

Rise & Shine Together Private Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1093183278239989

You Tube: Rise & Shine Playlist