​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.

Removal from the Rat Race

The best way to remove our self from the rat race we call life is to simplify our activities. We learn to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:15-25), to live by the faith of God's Son within us (Galatians 2:20) and to glorify God with our thoughts, words and deeds (1 Corinthians 10:31).

We focus our thoughts on God instead of the next goal we have for our life here on earth. He replaces our carnal character traits with His Spiritual fruit and leads us to do only His will for each day (Galatians 5:22-23).

His will is different for each one of us. He may call one as a pastor, someone else as a sales clerk, one as a car mechanic, another to serve Him as a lawyer or doctor, and someone else as a stay-at-home parent.

He removes us from the mental, financial and emotional roller coaster we choose for our life and puts us in a glass bottom boat so that we can see what is beneath the surface of life, as well as what is above the surface. Our spiritual understanding increases and our perspective broadens.

God leads us to restore broken relationships, resolve issues buried in our subconscious mind, to make new friends and to influence them for His Kingdom, and to be a neighbor who really cares about those living around us.

The power of God's Spirit, which raised Jesus from the dead, is an integral part of our life regardless of our vocation, social class, education and financial status.

We do not earn anything in life apart from Christ, but all that we have is a free gift, a by-product of our salvation in Christ. He provides our daily bread, like the manna in the wilderness and He meets all of our needs with His glorious riches (Matthew 6:11).

Prayer:

Father God, You complete us (Colossians 1:28, 2:10) by planting us in Your love, building up our faith, and using us for Your glory (Colossians 2:6-10). You provide us with the assurance of our salvation by filling us with Your Spirit and Your presence. Death and sin have no more dominion over us, because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from them (Romans 8:2).

Teach us who we are in Christ and sanctify our soul from one stage of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). Make us a new creation who lives to serve You with every breath we take and every move we make. Thank You for firmly rooting us by Your Word and guiding us by Your Spirit to walk in Your will for our life.

Thought for the Day:

God gives each one of us spiritual gifts, talents and wisdom in order to influence the world around us for His Kingdom, to serve in His Body and to bring light and hope to a society which chooses to doom itself to destruction and eternal torment.

- John 3:16-18; Romans 6:22-23

Daily Details

 

I have 1001 details to attend to every single day - well, that may be a slight exaggeration. At times, I feel like I am drowning in them. They wash over me and force me down into their depths.

As a young adult, I learned to make lists of my daily details every night before I went to bed. This helped me to stop thinking about them, so that my mind would shut off and I could fall asleep quicker.

I prioritized them and made sure that I had everything staged to achieve them as quickly and efficiently as possible. The next day, I crossed the chores off the list as I accomplished them.

I felt a sense of fulfillment and pride as the list got shorter by the hour. However, there were always items left on the list at the end of the day. Therefore, I added the new details to them that night and prioritized them for the next day.

My life was ruled by those lists, except when unexpected interruptions caused me to abandon the index and deal with that issue before referring back to my detailed catalogue of chores.

As I learned to walk in the Spirit, I continued to make the list, but not to prioritize the items. I listened to the Spirit and checked off the chores as He led me to deal with them. The list got shorter much quicker that way.

Over the years, I stopped making the lists altogether. I learned to listen to the Spirit each moment of the day and to obey His prompting for each one of them. I found that I accomplished more during the day than ever before.

Sometimes, God's Spirit would lead me to do several things at once, and also point out to me details that I would have forgotten to jot down on my list. I went to bed at night with my mind clear and no agenda hovering over me to control my next day.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for the leading of Your Holy Spirit, which keeps us in the center of Your will through the mundane moments of our daily life. Sometimes, I still get overwhelmed by the magnitude of details that are my responsibility in a short day's time; and as I age, they bother me more often. However, thank You for freeing me from the demon of perfectionism, and for helping me to simplify my life by forsaking the details that are actually not important.

Now, I can expect less of me and more from You. You work out even the tiniest issues and the most challenging details by Your Spirit, and You often do this without any help from me. You are amazing, God, and I thank You for adopting me into Your family and giving me the privileges as Your child in both this world and the next.

Thought for the Day:

There are no more unexpected interruptions in my day, because I learned to expect the unexpected as I follow the Spirit's guidance throughout each moment; accomplishing more than mere human effort could ever produce, I experienced the wonder of His work in and through me. 

- Proverbs 3:5-6