Our relationship with God in the spiritual realm is more
vital to our life here on earth than any other person, place or thing. Yet, we
often focus more on pursuing the world, and we suffer in body, soul and spirit.
Repenting of our sins and trusting in Jesus to save us,
opens the door for this intimacy with the supreme Ruler of the universe. Then
devoting our thoughts, words and actions to Him maintains our union.
Any rivaling carnal thoughts, words and deeds suck the spiritual
life right out of us. Satan attempts to keep us earth bound or pushes us to be
religious rather than spiritual.
Yet, Jesus made it clear that our goal in life centers on
loving God with our entire heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). Then,
we function in our ministry for Him by sharing His love with our mate and
children, as well as our parents and siblings.
We serve them as God's Spirit directs our steps. We meet
their needs in Jesus' name. Slowly, we branch out to our church family, workmates
and acquaintances, neighbors and strangers as the Spirit directs us.
All the while we guard against substituting good activities,
which side track us from God's will for us. The best activities are those which
are spirit led and directed (Proverbs 3:5-6). Then we never get too busy to
worship, praise and pray.
In God's plan for our life, every piece fits snugly
together like the pieces of a puzzle. We may not readily see God's purpose for
trials or opportunities, and we end up feeling frustrated, angry or hurt.
However, if we walk in the Spirit, we begin seeing spiritual
fruit from our labors. We learn lessons, overcome desires to sin, fall in love
with Jesus more every day and watch God use us to further His Kingdom on the
earth.
We gradually realize that we are dead to the old nature
and that Christ is now our whole life (Colossians 3:3-4). We give God complete
control of our life, even through the severest of trials and persecution.
We trust in His goodness, even though life often wearies
us and fills us with fear and insecurities. God continually pours out on us His
magnificent love and lavishly showers us with the fulfillment of His precious
promises.
He gives us everything we need to live a life of
contentment and holiness, which costs us nothing, because He already paid the
price for everything on Calvary's cross (John 3:16-18).
Prayer:
Father God, help us to follow in Jesus' footsteps and to
become obedient to Your Spirit each day (Philippians 2:8). Draw us ever closer
to Your heart, so that we daily increase our devotion, grow in our faith,
understand Your mysteries and live a life of trust in and worship of You.
We release our heart into Your care; trust You to work
out everything for our ultimate good, even if we never understand the why; come
to You to reveal to us the source of our negative emotions; and realize that
You give us a Kingdom focus which guarantees us that eternal life starts at
salvation.
Thought for the Day:
If we feel unloved by the world around us, we can always
look within and experience the amazing love of a God who took the form of a
human being and suffered and died in our place, in order to give us His eternal
life.
