Daily Devotional for Tuesday January 16, 2018

What Controls You

(Romans 8:5-8)

***DAILY PERSONAL PRAYER FOR YOU: Dear Lord, give me your strength to stand for your Truth no matter what the cost. It is easy to call myself a follower of Jesus, but when confronted, when challenged, when faced with persecution, will I still say I am a follower of Jesus? I love you Lord and ask for your strength so no matter what I have to endure for my faith, I will stand firm. In the name of Jesus I pray...AMEN!

One of the most incredible challenges we have each day in our Christian journey, is what controls us. The ultimate goal of every believer is to be controlled at all times by the Spirit of God, instead of the spirit of this world. It is when we are controlled by the Lord that we are able to fulfill our purpose in life, enjoy the peace, joy, and abundance of this life, and know God’s richest blessings.

When we allow ourselves to be controlled by the things of this world, we distance ourselves from the Lord. Whatever pleasure we enjoy are temporary followed by much pain, and we miss God’s best for our life. What controls our lives becomes the ultimate battle we fight each day.

The choice on what should control us is an obvious one. Making it happen is not so easy to accomplish. Before we became Christians, it was never an issue. There was no choice. We simply lived our life the way the world lived. Our lives were totally controlled by the spirit of the world.

Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are now confronted with a choice each day. Continue to live the way the world lives, the way we are used to living, or live under the control of our new Master, Jesus Christ. We must learn how to let the Holy Spirit control us. It doesn’t happen overnight but over a period of time.

How do we do it? It starts with our daily relationship with the Lord. Praying, reading the Word each day. We need to be part of a local fellowship and finding ways to serve the Lord. As this becomes our daily life and focus, as we are more in touch with God throughout the day, we get used to the Holy Spirit controlling our life as opposed to the things of this world controlling us. We learn how to be controlled by the Spirit of the living God.

The critical key becomes having our lives controlled by the Lord consistently, day after day. Never get so comfortable that you aren’t aware that you have to work to maintain that intimate, daily walk, since it is from that daily walk with the Lord, that we allow our lives to be controlled by Him.

When we stop praying each day; stop reading the Word each day; stop going to church; stop finding ways to serve God, that is when we become open to having the things of this world take control over our lives. So this becomes a daily challenge that we must take seriously, since it is when we allow the world control, we are capable of doing anything and everything that is not pleasing to God.

I love you and care about you! You can count on my prayers today, for you to really digest these complicated words. It is this principle of allowing the Holy Spirit to control your life each and every day that allows us as Christians to make a difference in this world.

It is when we are being controlled by the Spirit of God that God can work through us, giving us the power to do those things necessary to advance His plan and touch the lives of people. It is when the Holy Spirit is controlling us that we are fulfilling our purpose in serving and glorifying God with our lives.

Reaching this plateau, getting to this level each day, is the absolute ultimate in our Christian experience. There is no high from alcohol, drugs, sex, power, achievement, anything that can even come close to the spiritual high when you are being totally controlled by the Holy Spirit. It is the ultimate experience that should be the goal of every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray today that this will be your daily goal, to be controlled by the Spirit of God.

***I HAVE SOME GREAT NEWS TO SHARE WITH YOU!!!

FIRST, THANKS TO THE LOVE AND GENEROUS SACRIFICES OF SO MANY OF OUR FRIENDS “GIVING AS THEY WERE ABLE TO GIVE” AS THE BIBLE TEACHES, WE ENDED 2017 JUST $50,000 SHORT OF COVERING 100% OF OUR MONTHLY OPERATIONAL COSTS. ADDITIONALLY, OVER THE FIRST 2 WEEKS OF THE NEW YEAR THAT AMOUNT WAS NOW DOWN TO JUST $20,000!!!

SECOND AND VERY CRITICAL, I HAVE RESTRUCTURED SOME OF OUR OPERATIONS WITHOUT COMPROMISING OUR DAILY MINISTRY TO PEOPLE WORLDWIDE, CUTTING OUR MONTHLY MINISTRY OPERATIONS BUDGET FROM $65,000 TO $50,000. THAT IS $180,000 OFF OUR MONTHLY BUDGET THE LAST 10 YEARS!!!

LASTLY, THE LIVEPRAYER TV PROGRAM WILL BE BACK IN NATIONAL SYNDICATION THIS SUMMER!

Many times we were several hundred thousand dollars in monthly shortfalls. However, through His wisdom, grace, and mercy, we were only interrupted in our daily ministry operations for apx 45 days. As we ended 2017, God moved on many hearts to help us, several people making significant sacrifices, and we were just $55,000 short of ending the year with ALL of our daily ministry operations current! That number is down to just $20,000 over the first 2 weeks of January!!! GOD IS GOOD!!!

It has been YOUR prayers and YOUR faithful generous sacrifices over the years that has made Liveprayer available tens of millions of people worldwide for nearly two decades, with over 1.2 million souls we know of coming to faith in Jesus Christ! That requires and AMEN!!! You will never fully know the impact of your faithfulness until you get to Glory!!!

***Please continue to pray for me and HIS work here at Liveprayer as we continue the work God called us to 19 yrs ago. We are now down to the final $20,000 from 2017. Seek the Lord about a special one-time gift to help me clean up the final $20,000 of 2017 in the next few days so we can begin working on our new reduced monthly operations budget of $50,000.

TO GIVE A GIFT TO LIVEPRAYER, you can use your major credit card or PayPal at: http://www.liveprayer.com/donation.cfm or you can mail your gift to: Liveprayer, 6660 46th Ave. North, St. Petersburg, FL 33709. All gifts to Liveprayer are 100% tax deductible!

Know that you and your family are in my prayers daily, and may HIS richest blessings be yours as together we serve and follow our Lord!!!

In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller