Freeedoooom!!! & Insight for the Day

Dear Devoted Ones,DO's
Can you hear it? Freeedoooom!!!
I can still find myself falling back into that old trap of the flesh...being who I think someone wants me to be. I'm a conformist at heart anyway. Before the Lord began the renewing of my mind, I conformed to the person I thought I needed to be accepted by another. I don't think I even knew who I was suppose to be. Now...well, now I am conforming to HIM. I love the word "Conformed"
1. (intr; usually foll by to) to comply in actions, behaviour, etc., with accepted standards or norms
2. (intr; usually foll by with) to be in accordance; fit in he conforms with my idea of a teacher
3. to make or become similar in character or form
4. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) (intr) to comply with the practices of an established church, esp the Church of England
5. (tr) to bring (oneself, ideas, etc.) into harmony or agreement
There is just something warm and comfortable, cozy about that word to. I think it is the 'fitting' that feels good.
To be free to be who it is that God created you to be is 'fitting', it is being comfortable in your own skin...that feels good, doesn't it? It makes you love yourself and I see that as freedom. Do you know how many people do not love themselves...and have you noticed that if you don't love yourself, it is almost impossible to love others?


A Renewed Mind
by Charles R. Swindoll
2 Corinthians 10:11-12

No hypocrisy, no competition. Wouldn't that be refreshing to live such a life? It all comes to those with a "renewed mind" . . . those who determine they are going to allow the Spirit of God to invade all those walls and towers, capturing the guards that have kept Him at arm's length all these years.
I can't recall the precise date when these truths began to fall into place, but I distinctly remember how I began to change deep within. My fierce tendency to compete with others started to diminish. My insecure need to win---always win---also started to fade. Less and less was I interested in comparing myself with other speakers and pastors. This growing, healthy independence freed me to be me, not a mixture of what I thought others expected me to be.
And now my heart really goes out to others when I see in them that misery-making "comparison syndrome" that held me in its grip for so many years. Not until you start thinking biblically will this independent identity begin to take shape.
It is when God is in control of the servant mind that we can realize as never before that life's greatest joy is to give His love away to those poor souls who are still stuck in the rut of comparative living.
The more you give, the more you'll get!

Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll,
Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.