Sugar and spice and things that seem nice

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"Well hello Mr. Zucchini...and to your brother, mother, and second cousin removed...now what in the world am I going to do with y'all?"

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2 Peter 1:2-4

 On Friday, I was trying to figure out ways to use our homegrown zucchini. So far this summer, we've ate it fried and raw, shredded and sliced, baked and grilled. But I needed something new for today so I grabbed my tablet and headed to Pinterest. I searched recipes for zucchini and saw two that I had made in the past: zucchini cookies and three cheese zucchini lasagna! Yeah baby! These new-for-this-season, hide-the-zucchini recipes were gonna be supper tonight! And just a couple hours later, when the smells floating around my kitchen were so amazing, I didn't even mind the cleanup. Oh, but y'all...those cookies though...

 Before I realized what I was doing, I had inhaled four of those things. No milk. No coffee. No tea. Just cookies. Suddenly, I realized that I had just ate every calorie I should have had for lunch in four umm-umm-good cookies! And I laughed. Before our lifestyle change, eating four cookies would not have even registered as something to think about, let alone make me reconsider what I could eat the rest of the day. But that was then and this is now. And now every calorie I consumed counted, just like every choice we make after we decide to follow JESUS counts...
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Before being saved, before Jesus became our BFF, before the Holy Spirit came to reside within, we didn't think too much about dabbling in sin. It was our norm. Our language, thoughts, actions, intake...it was all just normal stuff that we engaged in, day in and day out. No transforming guilt, no desire to live better, just living each day as we saw fit.

 But after Jesus...after we turn over a new Christian leaf...after the Holy Spirit...dabbling in sin should bring about conviction (not condemnation but conviction). After our decision to follow Christ, we need to consider both our actions and non-action; to pause a second and think about then and now, to set up safe guards before we haphazardly fall back into our old ways. 

 Today in Sunday School, the lesson was pretty much the same as this post - we have to practice living as close to Christ as we can and we have to do so on purpose. Gorging on sin may satisfy a carnal need for a brief season of time, but the consequences are so much greater than anything we could possible fathom. More than we can fully comprehend.
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I encourage you to practice Christ-like-living daily. Develop your strengths and use them for the sake of helping others succeed too.  Folks, I've tried it both ways so I'm for real when I say life is not all sugar and spice and things that seem nice...but with Christ at the center of it all, life is so much sweeter. 
Hey have a blessed Sunday y'all,

 In Christ with love and compassion,

 Coach Kelly

 #YourLifeCoachingWV; #WVStrong; #BeyondTheMirror

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