I was so excited to have a night to get back to blogging. It’s been a hectic month, and when I blog, I need time to concentrate, proofread, and think about what I want to share. I always want to cultivate a desire to change and grow to become more like Christ. Each year, I take a spiritual inventory to assess where I need to grow and how to raise the bar in my walk with Christ. This year, one of my goals is to be joyful every day. Joy is something every follower of Christ should experience. It is something we have through God’s spirit and has nothing to do with what is happening around us. However, we often give our joy away to the devil’s wiles. He enters our lives in many different ways and always wants us to choose the flesh and not display the fruit of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

We give away our joy in how we choose to react. No one can make us feel, respond, or act; we choose to. No one can make us mad, angry, sad, jealous, envious, offended, and all the other emotions we give away. God is always looking for us to choose a good path. He has given us many principles in His Word that set us up for a life of continuous joy instead of constantly dealing with getting over the actions of the flesh. The devil can not make us do anything. Sorry, Flip Wilson, the devil does not make us do anything; we choose to. Deuteronomy 30:19 says, ” I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life so that you may live, you and your descendants,”. God wants us to choose things that lead to a life of joy and peace. He does not want us to live in resentfulness, bitterness, or unforgiveness.

When our children act like children, we should not choose anger or disappointment; we should train them how to go. Children do childish things because they are children and do not have the wisdom to do anything else. Parents have the role of taking every opportunity to help them become all that God desires them to become. But if we choose anger, frustration, impatience, or even to take an attitude of disappointment. We miss the opportunity to see them grow and build godly character. If the enemy is deceiving our sisters or brothers in Christ to act unbecomingly, they need us to show them love and patience (1 Corinthians 13:4). The Scripture teaches us that we should be aware of the devil’s schemes. And that we should treat those who behave like an enemy as if they were a friend. Proverbs 25:21-22 says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”

God rewards us when we choose to act godly instead of the flesh. Let the tricks and schemes of the flesh or the devil fall by the wayside. No one can make you react in the flesh. You can’t make me. I choose to. Walking through Walmart earlier this week, I noticed a lady with a shirt that read, “Not today.” It reminded me of the phrase, “Not today, Satan.” I replied to myself. “Not any day”. Psalm (No, “s”) 118:24 says, “This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” That is my desire every day for me and my fellow saints in Christ. Be blessed and be glad, and be a coal reaper.