Separated to God

If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). Whoever lives and believes in Christ shall never die (John 11:26). Our last breath on earth is followed by our next breath in Heaven. We will live on eternally.

The extent to which we surrender our lives to God determines the degree to which He will use our life on this earth. There is no place for double mindedness, compromise with sin or half-hearted devotion (Luke 9:62).

A committed and separated life to Christ, who lives within us, demands that we live an estranged life from this world (Romans 14:7-8). Christ is the center of our focus and our pre-eminent Love (Revelation 2:4).

We pant after Him with a parched thirst, yield our goals for our life to the will of God, and relinquish our selfish desires to God's transforming power (Psalm 42:1-2).

Even in negative circumstances, He promises to prosper us, not to allow anything to harm us as He cares for us, and to give us hope for our future (Jeremiah 29:11).

As we submit to God and resist the devil, we walk in freedom from Satan’s influence in our life (James 4:7). We transfer the ownership of our life to God and we live as good stewards of all He created.

Giving up our human rights, we exchange them for His privileges. We swap our character traits, which hold us back from success, for the victory we find in a life hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

God gives us the divine nature of Christ with all the fruit of His Spirit (1 Peter2:4; Galatians 5:22-23). We come to like our self much more in this transformed state than we did in our carnal state. We dedicate all of our days to His service.

Prayer:

Father God, as we repent of our sins and seek You, we have your peace and favor surrounding us (Job 22:21). Abandoning our life for Your sake, we live in obedience to You, just as Jesus did. We live, move and have our being in You (Acts 17:28).

Give us this day our daily bread, forgive our trespasses against Your will, and help us to forgive those who wound us. We give You all the power and glory and honor due to Your name and we commit to serve in Your Kingdom every moment of every day (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Thought for the Day:

God calls us to be holy in Him, and to be separated to God in this life and the next. - Psalm 4:3

Changed from the Inside Out

 

As I learned to enter God's rest and walk in His Spirit, I experienced intense withdrawals from my former codependent lifestyle. I acted like a schizophrenic.

One moment I would say or do something codependent and the next moment I would step into my new role as a Spirit-led Believer and say or do the opposite. I confused people by this dual personality.

Gradually, I decreased in my role as a codependent and Christ increased in me. I learned to say "No" unless God told me to say "Yes." He taught me to let the job go undone; so others whom God was calling to that role would step up and do it instead of me.

I started to see and appreciate the gray hues and tones in life, rather than seeing only black or white. My flexibility increased and my rigid extremes decreased.

The demon of perfectionism left my soul and I found joy in the messes of life as I had more time to enjoy other pursuits, which God called me to do. I actually left dishes in the sink and went to bed.

God's Spirit slowly changed my perspective from a carnal, earth-bound outlook to a spiritual, heavenly-minded one. He also healed my wounded soul, traumatized and dysfunctional since childhood and young adulthood ( www.theophostic.com ).

I released the shame and feelings of defectiveness attached to the wounds of the past and accepted His divine character and the fruit of His Spirit in their place (2 Peter 1:4; Galatians 5:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for exposing Satan's lies, which made me believe that I had to earn love by my behavior. Your Agape love opened me up to expect unconditional love from the significant others in my life. The fear, insecurity, defensiveness and over-sensitivity, which plagued my life decreased as I learned to trust You in spite of the untrustworthy people in my life.

You taught me the reality of the fact that You work out everything for our good, even the negative experiences in our life, which threaten to choke the very life from our soul (Roman 8:28). You trained me to look for the seed for a miracle in every trial. You are our worthy, benevolent Father and we are completely loved by You.

Thought for the Day:

Self-destructive behaviors - driven by frustration, anger and a wounded soul - diminish as we learn to enter God's rest and bask in His peace and joy, which are our true source of strength. - Nehemiah 8:10

 

Fruitastic Personality

The Holy Spirit moves into our life at justification - when we repent of our sins and ask Jesus to save us from the penalty of them. He brings with Him the power, nature and fruit of God's character.

His fantastic fruit will replace our carnal nature and make us a new creation (Romans 6:22). However, the weeds of sin, the world and the devil will rob the soil of our life and starve the spiritual fruit, preventing it from growing.

It is our choice to allow or to hinder this from happening. Negative emotions will crowd out His fruit by dominating our thoughts and preventing God's Word from germinating (2 Timothy 3:2; Romans 1:30).

It seems to be easier to grow the weeds of sin than the fruit of the Spirit; but as we surrender our will and all of our human effort to God's Spirit, it becomes unpleasant to sin and joyful to walk in holiness (1 John 2:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

We discover that God's Spirit replaces hatred with love, discontentment with peace, irritation with patience, criticism with gentleness, backbiting with goodness, worry with faith, pride with meekness, and depression with true joy, as we are controlled and guided by Him.

What do these fruit actually mean to our life and personality? His love gives us affection for others; joy produces an exuberance in us for life; peace conveys a deep abiding serenity; patience provides us with the willingness to persevere.

Gentleness exudes compassion from our heart; goodness radiates kindness which pervades our entire being; faith comes from experiencing God's faithfulness; meekness makes us humble in our service to our King. 

When God's Spirit guides us each moment of the day, we have self-control in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23). It is a bit overwhelming to think of changing all of these attitudes in our life at one time. 

Actually, the Holy Spirit changes us from one stage of glory to the next, a little at a time, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

We end up with a fruitastic personality; and we can share God's fruit throughout our lifetime with everyone we will ever meet. We will develop into a wonderful example of the love of God in an individual's life.

Prayer:

Father God, our old nature prevents Your fruit from growing in our life. Help us to lay aside those negative emotions and character traits, which so easily weigh us down and to allow Your Spirit to transform our life (Hebrews 12:1). 

Thank You for helping us to focus on the positive viewpoint in Your Word whenever negative thoughts assail us (Philippians 4:8). Help us to meditate on Your Word day and night as Your Spirit gives us the mind of Christ to replace the negative attitudes which come from Satan, the world and the flesh. 

Show us the root of every negative thought, feeling and outlook, so that we can surrender it to You immediately. This will prevent us from adopting a negative, complaining, stressed, depressed or grouchy attitude. Thank You for delivering us from our self.

Thought for the Day:

We can write verses pertaining to one fruit at a time and post them in obvious places where we spend time: like the bathroom mirror or kitchen window or refrigerator, or above our desk at work; so we can reread them daily as God's Spirit transforms our life with them.