Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them ––living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. -Romans 8:6 (msg)

If we could only keep our eyes off ourselves… we would be free. Let that soak into our bones and deep down into our very innermost being. For those willing, stand with me convicted as God shows us the deepness of the root of self and allow Him, through the power of His Spirit, to free us. The thorn of self runs deep, but God is Greater! If we dare to trust, God’s Spirit is in us, living and breathing God!

Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God… But! If God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells –– even though you still experience all the limitations of sin––you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s. -Romans 8:7-11 (msg)

Living and Breathing God. Lord, through the power of Your Spirit keep our eyes off of ourselves and turned to You, delighting in You. Amen.