A Yielded Life
A Yielded Life
By Joseph Parker
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30
“And He said to them, ‘Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?'” – Luke 2:49
The Holy Spirit is continually seeking to lead us further and deeper into the perfect will of God. Consequently, it would be wise for us to live a yielded life – a life where we seek to be faithfully and fully yielded to Him. How do we do this? The following are steps that can help us live a more fully yielded life.
1) Spend significant time in prayer daily – at least an hour a day would be a good and wise goal, asking the Lord to help and teach us how to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). God wouldn’t command us to do something that we couldn’t do. We will need the wisdom and help of the Holy Spirit to do it.
2) Spend significant time in the Word of God every day. “Your Word is a Lamp to my feet and a Light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). I would encourage a goal of reading at least 3 chapters in the Bible every day. When we spend time with God as we read and meditate on His Word, the Lord is both teaching and shaping us. It’s as if during this time, the Holy Spirit reaches inside our hearts and spends time molding and shaping us to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
3) Listen and obey. “But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). We are to live in a listening mode always seeking to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us many times each day. The Lord Jesus Christ did this perfectly. May it be our goal to do it as faithfully as we can, by His grace.
4) Be open to whatever the Lord directs us to do in His Word and by His Holy Spirit. Be prepared to live a sacrificial lifestyle. Sometimes the things that the Word of God and the Holy Spirit tell us to do may seem radical, odd, or hard to do. However, if the Word of God or the Holy Spirit directs us to do it, it’s what we should do.
For instance, the Holy Spirit may compel us to call someone “out of the blue” and ask “Can I pray for you?” Don’t argue. The Holy Spirit may direct us to pray for our neighborhood and go and give out gospel tracts in the community. Will that feel awkward or uncomfortable? Maybe. Probably. He may tell us to “Give a sacrificial offering of $50 to the missions project at church.” Don’t tell the Lord that’s too much because you can’t afford it. He won’t tell us to do something we cannot do. But He will consistently tell us to do things that would be a sacrifice for us to do. In fact, the life of a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ is a life of sacrifice. So if we are not living sacrificially, we are not faithfully following Christ.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1-2).