In our Christian walk, we participate in spiritual disciplines like praying, reading God’s Word, doing good works, and loving others as Jesus loves us. However, we do not rely on these practices for our eternal salvation. As we submit to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in our life, we enjoy our life so much more, as well as bearing much fruit for His Kingdom (John 12:24).
We accept Jesus as our Savior first; and then next, we make Him Lord of our life. We give up our own plans and embrace His will for us instead. We give up our sin-filled life for His service, which ultimately saves us from reaping many consequences from our ill-conceived choices (Mark 8:34-35).
As Christ-followers, we nail our corrupt and sinful passions and desires to the cross of Christ, and they are crucified with Him (Galatians 2:20, 5:19-23). This is a life-long process as He perfects us a little more each day - giving us an abundant and fulfilled life. We are no longer under sin’s control, but we are more than victors by the freedom of God’s grace (Romans 6:12-14, 7:18).
Submission and complete surrender require character traits that are not part of our personality, but as God’s Spirit replaces our nature with His fruit, His power gives us the ability to live a bountiful life (Galatians 5:22-23). Rather than trusting in our self, we trust in the will of God and enjoy the freedom that results (Galatians 5:1).
We submit our selfish tendencies to God, which allows Him to work in and through us. Anything that is more important to us than God is an idol. We turn over these issues to God’s Spirit and obey Him as He removes them from our life. God’s blessings on our life requires that we love Him more than our self-life and more than any created person or thing.
Prayer:
Father God, we trust You every moment of our day, and we live for You rather than for our self or any idol which we adopted as our focal point. Thank You for recording in Your Word the parable Thank You for including in Your Word the words Jesus told about a group of people who recited to Him the reasons they should be allowed into His fellowship. His challenging words to them echo in our soul: “depart from me, I never knew you.” Jesus warned us that our unbelief condemns us to an eternity without His presence and of condemnation and suffering in hell (Matthew 7:21-23).
Keep us from living as a false convert who felt conviction for our sin, but were never converted. We want to allow You to make us a new creation in You (2 Corinthians 5:17). We do not want to continue to wallow in sin and deprivation, but to flourish by Your Spirit and to walk in Your Word. We were not born to gratify our needs, but to serve You with every fiber of our being (Ephesians 2:10). Not our will, but Yours be done both in us, and also on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10).
Thoughts for the Day:
As we fully rely on God, we mature spiritually, grow in our faith, are relieved of the punishment for our sins as well as experiencing conformity to the image of Jesus. As we daily die to our self-life, we rejoice in the existence we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We serve as His ambassadors in this world as we follow His perfect plans for our life.
- John 3:30; Galatians 5:24-25; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:10; Romans 6:1-6
