People make many decisions at the first of the year to be better people, resolutions to do this or that. In most cases they don’t last. Why? I believe this is because people don’t have the ability to change themselves within themselves, in their own strength. Will power is not enough to gain control over your life, over your flesh. If it was, Jesus would never have had to come and die for us. So I give you a resolution that will lead in time to victory in all of the others you might want to make.
Come to know and learn the greatest secret life has to offer and live by it – and your life will change more than you ever thought possible, you will find the peace and abundant life that has always been so elusive, the true life that all men long for, that control over your life, over habits, emotions and feelings. We are not made to be controlled but to reign in life.
What is this secret? How can I learn it?
Philippians 4:11-13 – Not that I am implying that I was in any personal want, for I have learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am. I know how to be abased and live humbly in straitened circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want. I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency.
You must LEARN of Him, you must LEARN the secret of giving up yourself to Him and letting His strength flow into you, of putting all of your cares on Him and trusting Him from your heart. You must wait on Him and hope in Him and exchange your strength for His in actuality. You must walk with Him in His yoke not your own. You must enter His rest and learn to always abide there.
You can live a life of victory as well as contentment and peace, but it only comes through union with Him, through heart trust in Him. Center your focus on this union with Jesus, the open door through which His strength flows into your life and through you to others.
Matthew 11:28-30 – Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
Isaiah 48:16-18 – Come near to me and listen …Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Isaiah 40:28-31 – Even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord (who expect, look for, and hope in Him) shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up as eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint or become tired.
Job 14:14 – … all the days of my struggle I will wait, until my change comes.
Isaiah 64:4 – Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
Amp – Who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who [earnestly] waits for Him.
Psalm 62:1, 2, 8 – For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation. He only is my Rock and my salvation… My soul wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him. Trust in, lean on, rely on, and have confidence in Him at all times, pour out your hearts before Him.
My salvation comes from Him alone. My hope and expectation are only from Him.
My part:
–Come to Him
–Wait upon Him
–Silently submit to Him.
–Trust Him and have confidence in Him.
–Learn of Him.
–Pour my your heart before Him and give Him all my
cares.
–Put my hope and expectation in Him alone.
When I do my part, the part He has given me to do not what I think I should do, not necessarily what I have been taught to do, I shall change. He will act in my behalf. I shall renew my strength. I shall lift up my wings and catch the winds of the Spirit and soar over the problems of life. I shall run and not be weary and walk and not faint or become tired – because it is His strength I walk in not my own. I have all of my cares and burdens on Him not myself, and trust Him and relax and rest. Therefore I am at peace, while He works it all out for me. And the strength I live in is not my own but His, so all of the stress and strain of life gets passed over to Him.
There are no shortcuts. You can’t just “decide” you are trusting in Him when your heart hasn’t really reached the rest and peace of true trust. Take the time to fellowship with Him and teach yourself from His word what He is like. Convince yourself until you actually believe down in your heart that you can trust in Him. Then these things will work. (Actually, to the degree of your true trust and faith is the degree that you will get the results.)