Great comments, all, thanks for your input.

I find that many churches are full of self-righteous, legalistic, older-brother types. We just seem to collect them that way! My hope is that we're actually a church full of legalists and rebellious types who are all repenting and finding common ground at the foot of the cross. We all need Jesus to set us free from either behavior and to lead us into a true life-giving holiness that bears the fruit of the Spirit...including JOY! :)

And you can pray for me as I do battle in my own ways with this stuff--I tend to be a legalistic older brother in many respects and sometimes let that squash out my peace and joy in my walk with Christ.

If you were to combine all the journaling, the prayers, the conversations, the tears, the searching the Scriptures I've done on this issue, surely it would stack up to equal at least 10 persons on the never-enough end of the scale. And I
really do believe it has a lot to do with temperament since I didn't come from a particularly legalistic background. Temperament stuff has a lot to do with
how we fashion our "flesh" to function in the world before we know Jesus. Then
we are set free! But the old ways are so in-woven. And of course we have an
enemy who wants to keep them that way. But I just want to say--there is
absolutely nothing as awesomely wonderful as the freedom for which He set us
free! It is worth whatever struggle it takes to keep from being entangled again with a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).

First I would like to ecouage more people to coment on these devotionals. You might have somthing I need to hear!
Which 10 minutes of my walk are you asking about? :) I agree with Jan! I oscillate back and forth. But something that helps me here is reading "manner worthy of the gospel of Christ" within the larger context God chose for the bible. While there are other elements to the language and backdrop of the bible, it is emphatically set in kingdom and family contexts. Many biblical analogies, events and lessons occurre within either kingdom, family or both backdrops, "We are God's children", "Our Father who is in heaven", "The Kingdom of God", ect... In short Christians are, by adoption members of the royal family. I can imagine being the son of a good king and walking through my fathers kingdom. How would I act? How would I treat the people? Its unfortunate that we have surrendered this kingdom and family language in recent years and with it much of the richness of Scripture. "Manner worthy of the gospel of Christ" means doing my best to honor Christ by honoring what He won for me, restored relationship with God and adoption into the Kings family. Most definitely a gift and family I want to do my best to honor and not bring shame to. When I do fail I can trust to His love and grace he isn't waiting to blast me.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Romans 7:15.... this describes me...I plan to start each day with bible time etc and most often get side tracked...I want to obey!

At Freedom Won we like to encourage folks to make their life all about Jesus, as Paul did...that is to work towards Christ-conditioning; being like Jesus. Paul made many references in his journey to sports and how athletes run to obtain the prize. And so it should be with believers....just as athletes work feverishly to become physically-conditioned, so should we who are called by His name, work to become Christ-conditioned; to be more and more like Jesus with each passing day. Just as athletes imitate athletic champions in an effort to be like them, so should we strive to imitate our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We have an advantage over physical competitors....in that our spiritual endeavor to be like Jesus is limitless, because we have the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit living within us, enabling us to make it possible.

With that said, we should never feel condemned when we fall short or sometimes miss the mark while striving to be like Jesus, as long as we're truly doing our best to make our life all about Him; that's why it's called amazing grace, and His grace is sufficient....if we deny ourselves and work towards Christ-conditioning with the same fervor as we might dedicate to other pursuits in life, we can have God-confidence that He is in control, and thus, we can count it all joy....we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding....we will not be anxious about anything.

All praise and glory to the Lamb of God....Amen.

I'm not consistent. Sometimes I can not do enough and sometimes I forget to listen and be obedient.