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I’ve often thought of the Christian life as a continual process of opening oneself up to God. We start our Christian journey by saying yes to Jesus—and then the difficult work of actually giving over every part of our being to God begins. A.W. Tozer questions whether or not any of us fully understands the extent to which the Spirit wants to take over our lives. Have we truly counted the costs of letting God be the Lord of our Lives?

Before a man can be filled with the Spirit he must be sure he wants to be. And let this be taken seriously. Many Christians want to be filled, but their desire is a vague romantic kind of thing hardly worthy to be called desire. They have almost no knowledge of what it will cost them to realize it.

Let us imagine that we are talking to an inquirer, some eager young Christian, let us say, who has sought us out to learn about the Spirit-filled life. As gently as possible, considering the pointed nature of the questions, we would probe his soul somewhat as follows: “Are you sure you want to be filled with a Spirit who, though He is like Jesus in His gentleness and love, will nevertheless demand to be Lord of your life? Are you willing to let your personality be taken over by another, even if that other be the Spirit of God Himself?

What areas in your life are you holding back from God? Is it out of fear, pride, or something else?

Our life circumstances can change in an instant. A car crash, a fire, a diagnosis: it doesn’t take much to make us feel like we’ve gone from a life of blessing to a life filled with trials. Our Daily Bread reminds us that despite our circumstances, God deserves our gratitude:

Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in a horseback riding accident in 1995. Prior to this tragedy, he had played the part of a paraplegic in a movie. In preparation, Reeve visited a rehabilitation facility. He recalled: Every time I left that rehab center, I said, Thank God thats not me. After his accident, Reeve regretted that statement: I was so setting myself apart from those people who were suffering without realizing that in a second that could be me. And sadly, for him, it was.

We too may look at the troubles of others and think that it could never happen to us. Especially if our life journey has led to a measure of success, financial security, and family harmony. In a moment of vanity and self-sufficiency, King David admitted to falling into the trap of feeling invulnerable: Now in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved (Ps. 30:6). But David quickly caught himself and redirected his heart away from self-sufficiency. He remembered that he had known adversity in the past and God had delivered him: You have turned for me my mourning into dancing (v.11).

Are you going through a time of trial or a time of blessing? How have you expressed gratitude and trust to God despite your cirucmstances?

Joseph’s life was filled with evil actions that he had no control over. His brother’s—jealous of their father’s favor—faked his death and sold him into slavery. Later, he would be falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife of rape and thrown into prison. Joseph had much to be angry about, but he didn’t give into bitterness. Instead, he let God turn his horrible circumstances into something great.

We can learn a lot from how Joseph reacted to each new challenge in his life. At every step of the way he had to make a decision whether to give into the temptation to despair, or to move forward. This devotional from Day by Day points out that holding onto bitterness often ends up hurting us and making us miss out on the good that God has for us:

For many of us, we would sooner withdraw than to seek to find greater purpose in our place. We victimize ourselves and consider ourselves deserving of the bitterness we harbor, all the while ignoring how the bitterness is only hurting us and making matters worse. We turn our entire situation inward and grow more angry with each passing day, and then we convince ourselves that no one could possibly understand, and that no one is worthy of identifying with the pain we have felt. Granted, the pain was real and the hurt very personal. But, the bottom line is that we have a choice as to what that pain and hurt becomes. It can either be evil that remains evil—or it can be turned around by God to bring something that is good.

There is so much in this world meant for evil, and there is so much we will suffer as a result of that evil. But there is a God who is far greater, and there is a potential for good to be brought out from all things. We do not have to allow the evil to hurt us to the point of permanently stealing our joy. We do not have to allow the evil to imprison us in an eternal withdrawal and disillusionment. There is a victory that can come out of the worse circumstances, and a joy that can radiate from a wounded heart. All because God can take what some mean for evil, and use it to accomplish greater things.

Are you holding onto bitterness? What would it take for you to let go of it and trust God?

Like Adam and Eve after their fall, we strive to hide our nakedness from each other. We dress ourselves up and put on a happy face, and when people ask us how we are, we cheerfully answer “fine!”

When God looks at us, however, He sees right through our facade… straight into our sinful hearts. Before God, we are wretched condemned criminals. Thankfully, as Joe Stowell reminds us in this devotional, God has extended an amazing grace to us:

If we were to look at ourselves the way God sees us even when we have it all together, we would see something totally different. He sees through all of our efforts to be lookin good. His vision probes far deeper than the all-too-cool clothes we wear, our makeup, our rippling abs and our great tan. He strips away the layers of self-delusion and penetrates deep into our hearts where each of us is a desperately lost sinner. And, no matter how good you think you are, its not until we know that we are like condemned criminals before Him that we can begin to understand how amazing His grace really is. When you can honestly say that His grace saved a wretch like you, you can begin to stand in amazement at the greatness of His grace. In fact, His grace is only a sweet sound when you know how deep it had to go to clean you up!

What is Gods amazing grace? Its the outstretched love of Jesus whose agonizing death and victorious resurrection saves us from who we really arenot from who we think we are. Romans 5:8 says: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died the worst kind of death imaginable, because it needed to cover the wretchedness of our desperately lost souls. We werent lookin good when He died for us. If we were as cool as we think we are, He could have stayed in heaven. But like hopeless beggars trapped in the sludge of sin, we needed Him. And so He came and died in our place. Now thats what I call amazing!

Do you feel like a wretch before God? How does knowing that God doesn’t care about your outward appearance change how you live?

Have you ever felt utterly overwhelmed? How did you cope?

Anabel Gillham writes at Lifetime Guarantee about how Jesus dealt with the stress of His earthly life. In his final hours, Jesus found a quiet place by himself on Mount Olivet where he could pour out his heart to God:

We can learn something else from our beloved Savior: He went away by Himself and spent the night on the mount called Olivet, isolated from the suffocating, human barricade that imprisoned Him, clutching at His robe, calling—screaming—sobbing— Help me! Please help me. Was He burdened with the multitudes who came only to see a lame man walk or a blind man seefleeting, fragile miracles of physical healing that would last only for a brief span of time when eternity was on His mind? Yes. He longed to be by Himself in a quiet place with no interruptions sharing His thoughts with His Father and drawing strength for what was to come.

When life’s stresses overcome you, do you have a place where you go to cry out to God?

God deserves our fear. After all, He is the Prime Mover of the Universe. In Him alone is the power to control all of Creation. However, as we read in this devotional from Our Daily Bread, God’s desire isn’t for us to just cower in fear before Him, but to praise Him:

The prophet Isaiah caught a glimpse of this God. In a vision that mingled the wonders of a Messianic kingdom with the promise of a new heaven and earth, he describes One who makes the skies His throne and the earth His footstool (Isa. 66:1).

Yet Isaiah saw something even more overwhelming. He saw a great God who wants His people to be glad and rejoice forever in what I create (65:18). In response, lets bow before Him in humble adoration (66:2).

Astoundingly, despite holding all the power in the world, God chooses to delight and please us with all that He does.

Do you find it easy to praise God for the good things He’s given us? What in Creation draws you to praise Him?

Some memories are so painful that we avoid thinking about them entirely. Who wouldn’t like to forget that failed relationship, or getting fired, or that painful surgery? Certainly there are times in my life that are easier to ignore than think about.

However, our spiritual health often requires reflection on harrowing circumstances like these. We expectation that looking back will be painful, but what we don’t expect is that even in our darkest times, God was there. In this Slice of Infinity devotional, Jill Carattini writes that looking into our past is a great way to see the hand of God working in our lives:

Seldom can one fail to recall a time marked by restlessness in the stages of human development, a yearning for answers amidst turmoil or confusion. For many, it is the tender age of adolescence; for others it is the inquisitive years of college, the emptiness of a midlife crisis, the vulnerability of childhood. Though looking back at these formative events from infancy to adulthood may be for many like looking at a picture we don’t want to recognize, upon opening our eyes, we might just discover that we now are able to see what was there all along: another figure in the reflection standing beside us, the God who was there even when we were sure we were alone. J.R.R. Tolkien’s words offer a telling picture for those convinced at what they do not see: “The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.”

The stages and crises of development that most transform us are stages that inherently seem to bid us to ask the existential questions we were somehow meant to ask all along. To understand why a particular trauma of adolescence or lesson of young adulthood shaped us the way it did may be wearisome or frustrating, but in our attempts to revisit the formative nature of these years, we just may find ourselves treading on holy ground. As Joseph learned on his way from the pit to the throne, the God who startles us is Lord even over the process.

Looking back, do you see God in any of your most difficult experiences?

Have you ever tried to hide from God?

The first actions of Adam and Eve after the fall were to cover themselves and try to hide from God. And though it’s obvious God wasn’t fooled by their actions, that hasn’t stopped humanity from attempting to flee from Him ever since.

This Daily Encounter devotional urges us to be honest with God. After all, he already knows the deepest depths of our souls; there’s nothing we can say or think that would shock Him:

“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” […]

When it comes to trying to hide from God, that’s impossible. God knows all. He sees all. He knows who I am . . . where I am . . . why I am here . . . where I am going . . . what I am doing . . . and what I am not doing. No matter how I try, I cannot hide from God! No way. Period!

As David wrote in the Psalms, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

The best thing is to tell God who you are, where you are, what you want, what you don’t want, what you are afraid of, what you don’t want to give up, etc., etc. Only when we get honest with ourselves and real with God, can he (or anyone else) help us.

Consider taking some time today to open up to God. If you’re experiencing some deep hurt, anger or struggle, being honest with God is a freeing first step toward peace.

Do you ever wish God would just tell you exactly what He wanted you to do?

Few people have had the blessing of a crystal-clear calling from God. Their stories are inspiring and often amazing, but they have the side effect of tempting us to think that if we haven’t “heard God,” we’re spiritually defunct. However, as Blaine Smith from Nehemiah Notes writes in this article, overtly supernatural guidance isn’t actually all that common. In fact, instances of God giving humans specific spiritual direction are few and far between:

There are substantial reasons why we shouldnt normally expect supernatural guidance today. One is the scarcity of it in the early church. When we examine the many personal decisions noted in the New Testament, we find that most were made simply through practical reasoning, with no supernatural guidance involved. Even Paul rarely experienced it. Acts records less than ten incidences when he did, and the evidence is overwhelming that supernatural guidance seldom played a role in his day-to-day decisions.

Furthermore, its by no means evident that the typical Christian in the early church ever received such guidance, or even that most of the apostles did after Pentecost. It was clearly was a decidedly exceptional experience in the New Testament church.

Even more important, there is no statement in the Old or New Testament instructing us either to seek or expect supernatural guidance. If God had wished us to rely on it as our normal approach to knowing his will, he surely would have given us a command to that effect within his Word.

Then there are practical reasons why God wouldnt normally choose to guide us supernaturally. For one thing, the experience could be terribly frightening to us. Martin Luther notes, Our nature cannot bear even a small glimmer of Gods direct speaking. . . . The dreams and visions of the saints are horrifying . . . at least after they are understood.* The late James H. Miers, former pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, prayed hard for a supernatural revelation from God. When it finally came, he said, it scared him half to death!

Beyond this obvious psychological hazard, supernatural guidance could pose severe trials for our faith. We might be inclined to think of ourselves as more spiritual than others who havent had our experience. Supernatural guidance also could make the decision process too easy for us, robbing us of the incentive to take the sort of responsibility for our choices that truly develops faith.

Blaine does explain that there are exceptions to this, so it’s worth reading the whole article at nehemiahministries.com

Have you ever gotten direct guidance from God? If not, how do make sure that your decisions are aligning with the principles we’ve been given in the Bible?

Every day we have to make a decision about whether or not we’re going to trust God enough to follow Him. For most of us that decision won’t have a lasting historical impact, but for some people, trusting in God’s sovereignty has played a key part in the story of Christianity.

Our devotional this morning comes from Today in the Word. In it, the author discusses Zerubbabel’s role in rebuilding the temple—an action that had repercussions for centuries to come:

The book of Haggai is the story of a turning point in the spiritual life of Gods people. They had gone from neglecting the new temple and the spiritual state of their own hearts to obediently rebuilding the temple and joyfully participating in genuine worship. They had moved from self-centered to God-centered, and as a result were poised to experience His blessing on their harvests and community.

Todays final message is addressed to Zerubbabel, and it parallels the messianic passage earlier in the chapter (vv. 6-9). The first part reaffirms that God is sovereign and has a plan for the nations (vv. 21-22). The second part portrays Zerubbabel as a signet ring on Gods hand (v. 23). One meaning of this image was that God would bless Zerubbabel as a leader, as opposed to King Jehoiachin, who as a signet ring had been discarded (Jer. 22:24-25).

A second meaning of this picture was that Zerubbabel was a type or foreshadowing of Christ (cf. Zech. 3:8). Generally, a kings signet ring carries the authority of the king, just as Christ the Son is equivalent in authority to God the Father (John 17:2). From our vantage point in history, we know that Zerubbabel was in the line of David and an ancestor of Jesus (Matt. 1:12). Zerubbabel, then, was chosen by God to lead in a special task, rebuilding the temple, at a key time in history, and both who he was and what he did had spiritual significance beyond that time, just as God had planned.

Read the rest of the devotional at todayintheword.com.

Your decision to follow Christ might not change the course of history, but that doesn’t make it any less significant. How have you seen your relationship with Christ change the world around you?