I read this from Dennis Rainey of Family LIfe:
The choices you make today or tomorrow are not confined to today or tomorrow. A baby step of obedience may be all the ground you need to cover today in order to put yourself in position to launch a major spiritual breakthrough later on.
As C. S. Lewis wrote, “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”
What an incredible proposition!
…Even a trivial indulgence in lust or anger today represents the loss of territory in our hearts that the enemy can secure, giving him an inroad to launch an attack against you–an attack that otherwise would have been impossible. Each misstep offers him a stronger foothold for marshaling his counteroffensives against you, against your marriage, against your family–if not right now, then at a later time when he knows he can inflict the greatest amount of damage.
So it is absolutely crucial that you submit your passions to Jesus Christ each day, denying yourself the temporary pleasures of sin and therefore gaining ground that can only be won through consistent, ongoing, long-term obedience. It takes a great deal of courage to say no to the appetites of the flesh, especially over time.
Someone has said, “It is upon the little hinges of obedience that the door of opportunity swings.” God wants to open those “doors” for us. The question is: Will we be obedient?
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I’m not a very dependable person. I am often late, I procrastinate, and I don’t like to commit myself to hard things, and when I do, I want to find some excuse to back out.
But I hope that taking small steps of obedience that are relatively easy will help me become a better person in the long run.