Today’s Quote: “The More I Seek you, the more I find you. The more I find you, the more I love you. I wanna sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand. Lay back against you and breath, feel your heart beat. This love is so deep, it’s more than I can stand. I melt in your peace, it’s overwhelming.”- Kari Jobe
Today’s Song: “Hope Now”-Addison Road
I’m so glad that you’ve not given up on me yet.
If you are anything like me than these past 7 days have overwhelmed you.
When I read books that are giving me a whole lot of heavy advice, I tend to put them down for long periods in between, or even permanently.
Because if it’s good advice, I want to actually do the stuff that it’s telling me to do!
I don’t want to just have a feel good experience, I really want it to work!!
But I want to remind you of the same thing that I have to remind myself of over and over when I read those kinds of books: Authors are just people.
People just like you.
We are emotional and biased and very opinionated.
We push the things that our life stories have taught us, and we tend to think that everyone should do what we did.
We can’t help it, it worked for us.
So girlfriend, listen, I want to end this book by bringing you back to the simplicity of this scripture. It is the key scripture of this book, and really, the key scripture of my life:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” –Matthew 6:33 NKJ
That just says it all really.
Seek God with everything in you, and He will fall everything else into place.
He will give you such better discernment on relationships, fear, pride, service, all of that stuff, than I ever could.
Because really when it comes down to it, the truth is that we are not even capable of remembering all the right things to do, let alone actually carrying them out, on our own.
It’s about moving inside of God’s spirit and allowing Him to direct you as He’d like. And that starts with spending time with Him.
There’s a story in the book of Acts where there is a group of men walking down a road and they bumped into the apostle Paul along the way.
Paul asks them if they have received the Holy Spirit yet and they answer something to the effect of- “we didn’t even know there was such a thing.” (Acts 19:2)
So Paul prays for them to receive it and they do.
Immediately they begin speaking in tongues and prophesying.
A similar thing happened to Jesus disciples upon receiving the Holy Spirit.
It changed them in an instant from a group of directionless, stagnant men into a group of strong, brave, fearless, witnesses who busted out into the world to share the blessed hope.
Jesus! His spirit alone is what moves us to do great things.
Did you know that you are free to ask for God’s Holy Spirit at any time?
“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”-Luke 11:11-13
So just how does the Holy Spirit coming upon you change your Christian walk?
The first thing we see in God's word is that it gives you power!
The strength and the know-how to really do God's will!
So that you can go out into the world, do what you’ve been called to do, and share your faith with others, however it is that you’re called to do that.
Without God’s Holy Spirit, it’s impossible to do those things well.
Without God’s Holy Spirit we lack, confidence, direction and effectiveness.
Without God’ Holy Spirit, we get tangled up in the kinds of things we’ve been talking about, like…
Church Drama- I am convinced that the reason so many people get hung up on such petty stuff is because they do not have a fresh walk with Christ. A fresh filling of His spirit for that day.
Pride- Without God’s spirit we just default to wanting to be the “it” person.
Fear- Because we’re not strong enough alone and we know it.
Following the world- Because we can’t discern the mood from the truth when we’re not filled with God’s spirit.
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…”- Galatians 5:22-23
Let me try to bring this verse to life a little.
*Love- God’s Holy Spirit will cause you to grow increasingly more loving. The dark feelings of anger and bitterness will be replaced by light- a genuine love and care for others.
*Joy- God’s Holy Spirit will cause you to grow increasingly more happy. And not just a temporary kind of happy that is based on circumstance- real joy!
*Peace- God’ Holy Spirit will bring you peace, even in the midst of chaos and confusion. A deep, inner peace of spirit.
*Patients- God’s Holy Spirit will help you to grow more patient. Settled. Not reacting all the time to things, but rather acting out of wisdom.
*Kindness- God’s Holy Spirit will give you a sweet spirit and help you to be kind to others, even when nobody else has it in them to be kind to them.
*Goodness- His Spirit just helps you to be good. To know that when you are filled with the Holy Spirit that the deepest inner parts of you are no longer filled with darkness and sin, but goodness!
*Faithfulness- God’s Holy Spirit will cause you to grow increasingly faithful. Truthful, authentic, and filled with faith.
*Gentleness- Oh does the world ever need this from us women. How precious is a spirit of gentleness in a world full of callousness and crudeness.
*Self-control- God’s Holy Spirit will cause you to grow increasingly self-controlled. Knowing what needs to be done and having the discipline to do it. Not pulled around by the desires of your flesh anymore.
Oh girls, Jesus wants so much for us!
I just can’t help but praise Him that He is out for our good!
In a world that belittles and demines and promotes darkness, He has come to set us free and He has paid the ultimate price to do it. Thank you so much, Jesus.
Pray consistently for His spirit to come upon you, and get ready to see what He can do!!
As we wrap this journey up I want to remind you that you are always just one prayer away from coming back to Jesus.
No matter how far you’ve strayed,
how messed up things have gotten,
how many times you’ve screwed things up;
when you cry out for God, He is there.
And He offers you a fresh start every time.
He loves you.
He loves you so much that He died to save you from your sin.
He died so that you can have eternal life and true freedom in Him.
He loves with the kind of love that cannot be changed no matter what you do.
If you love Him back with everything you have, You will abound with so much love that you cannot help but love other people.
If you seek to love God with everything that you have, HE WILL CHANGE YOU.
Love Him with all you have, and just watch what He can do!
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” –Matthew 6:33
Today’s Dare: Everyday, from now on, during your “Fill Up” time, I dare you to ask God to fill you with His Holy Spirit. And watch the difference in your life.