​Give Yourself to God

Give yourself first and completely to God. Do not give Him a few moments of devotion, but dedicate all of your day and night to Him.

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Seek His direction at home, work, school and play. You will live in His peace and anointing, and will reap the joy and serenity He provides as you give yourself entirely to Him.

He will not grant all of your desires, He will not spare you from all of your trials and heartache, but He will always give you more and better than you could ever imagine.

As we simplify our life, we no longer buy what we do not need. We do not pay a monthly fee for a storage room that collects stuff we will never see again.

The more possessions we own, the more they own us. If we do not have room for it at home, we do not need it. The more we walk in the Spirit, the less time we have to walk in the flesh (Romans 5:16).

Without encumbering ties to this earth, we can consecrate our whole spirit, soul and body in service to King Jesus as we traverse through our day by the leading of God's Spirit.

Prayer:

Father God, the more control we attempt to maintain over life, the more problems we experience. Trouble seems to come in three's and gets totally out of our control more often than not. Yet, the more of our self we give to You, the less we have to worry about and attempt to control in our life. 

You sent Jesus to pay our sin debt and You gave us Your Spirit to lead us through every moment of our life. As we surrender control to You, and obey Your Spirit moment by moment without resisting; we reap the joy You have in store for us each and every day.

Thought for the Day:

Jesus died to give us eternal life in abundance now and for eternity; so the least we can do is to live our life for Him.

No Longer a Sinner - Reaching Perfection through Christ in Us

 

Standing alone, we are not sinless, because we are not equal to God. We cannot trust in our self for salvation (Proverbs 28:26; John 15:5). Righteousness is not attained by human self-effort (Galatians 3:1-3).

The shelves of self-help books in the stores can give us a clue about what we need to change, and we may even discipline some character flaws out of our personality. However, we cannot perfect our self (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Paul chronicles his struggle with sin and death in Romans 6-7. In his desperation as a wretched human being, he calls out for deliverance (Romans 7:19).

It is then that He realizes that the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ our Lord already delivered us from bondage to the law of sin and death (Romans 7:24-25, 8:2).

God gives us His grace and saves us through faith in Jesus’ work on Calvary’s cross (John 1:17; Ephesians 2:8). We no longer need to focus on sin or the world, but on the righteousness of Christ in us, who is our hope of living in eternal glory (Colossians 1:27).

Jesus in us already overcame sin, death and the devil by His death and resurrection (Colossians 3:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8). Therefore, God’s Spirit changes us over our lifetime by His anointing in our spirit, soul and body (Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

We walk in His ways by His Spirit within us (Ezekiel 36:27). We simply heed God's conviction, obey His direction and live through faith in His faithfulness, so that we are able to walk in His holiness one moment at a time (Romans 1:5; 16:26).

Prayer:

Father God, create in us a spotless heart, and renew a righteous spirit within us (Psalm 51:10). Work in us according to Your good pleasure and perfect us until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6, 2:13). Give us Your power and anointing to accomplish Your will in the earth each moment of our day (Ephesians 3:16).

Thank You that You already perfected our spirit, because we are born again by Your Spirit - through justification; once we see Jesus, perfection will come to our body through glorification; and You perfect our soul – our mind, choices and emotions – from one stage of glory to another through a lifetime of sanctification.

Thought for the Day:

Christ in us is greater than both our carnal nature and also all of the powers of darkness in the world. - I John 4:4

Living in God’s Presence

 

I used to think that God wanted me to work for Him. I ministered to my husband and three children first: keeping a casually clean home, cooking meals from scratch with my limited recipe base, minimizing mountains of dirty laundry, and participating in the life of my family at home, church, school and play.

I was under the impression that God also desired for me to spend all of my free time serving in the soup kitchen, going to Bible studies, taking abandoned children into our home, helping to lead worship in my church, teaching adults how to read, witnessing to everyone I met and a myriad of other activities as a Pastor's wife.

However, these very activities stole time away from my ability to actually live in the presence of God. Remember when Jesus went to the pool? He only healed one man (John 5:1-18).

Another time, when Jesus walked through the crowd, only the woman who touched his garment was healed (Luke 8:43-48). He could have healed everyone, but He lost a measure of spiritual energy whenever He did; so He paced Himself, used His power wisely and did only those things which God's Spirit directed Him to do.

Jesus taught the crowds, but He spent more time in solitary places communing with our Father God (Matthew 6:9-13, 11:25-26, 14:23; Luke 6:12, 22:32, 22:41-44, 23:34; John 11:41-42, 12:27-28, 17:1-26). He drew His strength, confidence and anointing from this relationship.

We can learn a lesson from Jesus’ life. He listened to God, heard His direction and did only what the Father said and did (John 5:19, 8:28, 12:49). He lived in the very center of God’s will. Now, He calls us to do this very same thing.

Sometimes, I actually argue with the Spirit’s leading, or discount it as a human thought which just floated through my mind. Maybe I am tired and I do not want to follow the Spirit’s leading. 

I have my own agenda for my day; so I decide to take a nap or go to the pool or make some craft instead of obeying my Father’s will. When I do, I quickly learn that I grieved the Holy Spirit and missed an opportunity to further the Kingdom of God and to receive His blessings.

Sometimes, God will lead us to nap, because of what lies ahead in our evening, or He has a person at the pool or golf course whom He wants us to talk to about Jesus. The point is to walk in the Spirit, so we do not reap the consequences of living in the flesh.

Prayer:

Father God, keep our thoughts centered on You as we learn to walk only in Your ways. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see the spiritual realm of life, so we do not walk in the flesh, but in Your Spirit (Galatians 5:15-25). We want to live for Your glory and to further Your Kingdom in the earth. You are our everything and we live to bring You pleasure.

We want to seek and to save the lost, just like Jesus did. We want to impact Your Kingdom in the earth every day that we reside on this earth. Remind us to smile at people, to engage strangers in conversation if they are willing, to minister to our neighbors' needs, to visit the sick and hospitalized, to do true religion that is pure and undefiled (James 1:27).

Thought for the Day:

We no longer rely on our human reasoning to direct our day, because we seek the Lord; He directs our path (Proverbs 3:5-6) as we walk through our day communing with our Father and following His Spirit’s direction even if it makes no human sense to us at all.