If God is to make His “home” in us, here are some “rooms” we may need to give Him access to:

The Study or the Library: Your Mind. What kind of things do you think about? The more you think of something, the more it becomes a part of you. In fact, your thoughts set the course for your life. God knows what we’re thinking, so let’s focus on things that He wants us to think—things that are noble, pure, trustworthy, admirable…(see Philippians 4:8). And remember, you can choose what you think about. So when the devil tries to interject thoughts in your mind, you don’t have to just take them.

Dining Room: Our Desires. We need to come to the point where we can say “God, I only want what You want, and if I’m asking for something You don’t want me to have, then don’t give it to me.” Our desires can cause the biggest problems in our life—especially when someone else gets something we want. But God wants us to be happy for others when they are blessed and trust that He’ll do what is best for us at the right time.

The Living or Family Room: Your Friends. Who are your friends? What do you talk about when you’re with your friends? I’m talking here about the people you spend your time with and those you open your heart to. Does your conversation put a smile on God’s face…or does it grieve Him? Get together with people who love the Word of God and be creative with how you help others. Because there’s one thing for sure: when you get your mind off yourself and focus on blessing someone else, you’ll get happier than you’ve ever been!

The Workroom: Your Legacy. Are you bearing good fruit…or are you just taking up space? I encourage you to work with excellence and integrity. When you choose not to gossip at work, waste company time or participate in things that wouldn’t please Him, then you honor God. And when you honor God, then He will honor you. Remember: We need to do what’s right because it’s right, even when no one’s looking…because God is always with us.

Recreation Room: Your Entertainment. Do you let God decide what movies you watch, the music you listen to or the things you read? There is nothing wrong with having a good time, but our choices also need to honor Him. Likewise, we have to be careful about how much time we devote to entertainment. When it takes a stronger priority in our life than it should, there’s a problem. It’s not that you can’t have any fun; you just need to choose what is best for you and is pleasing to God.

The Hall, Closet, Attic, Garage or Basement: Hidden Things. This is where we hide all those things we don’t think we’ll use again, but we hold on to them just in case…things like self-pity or unforgiveness. God dealt strongly with me about self-pity. But even after I officially gave it up, I put it somewhere in that back closet of my life just in case I wanted to have just one more pity party. How about getting rid of everything that’s not pleasing to God?

Only with God’s Help

What are you holding on to that needs to go? You can’t do any of it without God. Ask Him to help you get rid of everything in the rooms of your life that aren’t pleasing to Him. If you do it in God’s timing and by His grace, it’ll be so much easier. If you try to do it on your own, you’ll be frustrated and miserable with your striving.

Jesus is a divine guest inside of you all the time—one who loves, understands, sees and hears you. He wants to live in oneness with you…to be the centerpiece of everything you do. But, ultimately, the choice is up to you. Will you make Him welcome in every room of your house?

When you become a Christian, something truly amazing happens: God comes to live inside your heart. You become the home of God.

First Corinthians 6:19 says it this way: Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, Whom you have received [as a Gift] from God? (AMP)

One of the things I love most about being at home is that I’m comfortable there. And since we are the home of Christ, we need to make sure He’s comfortable in us.

We need to do it because we love Him, honor Him and adore Him. Because if He’s not comfortable, then we can’t be comfortable. Do you ever experience a discomfort in your spirit? If so, ask yourself: Is there something in my life that’s making God uncomfortable?

If we’re going to really live the Christian life, we need to decide to surrender all of our heart and let God have access to every room in our “house.” And when God asks us to surrender the things in the rooms of our heart, we need to get excited, because something greater is coming.

We need to say, “God, I give You free reign because I know You are good and You love me and wouldn’t ask me to give up something if it wasn’t for my benefit.” Jesus paid a tremendous price for us to have a joyful, peaceful life and He doesn’t want to see us miserable.

Here are some “rooms” we may need to give Him access to:

The Study or the Library: Your Mind. What kind of things do you think about? The more you think of something, the more it becomes a part of you. In fact, your thoughts set the course for your life. God knows what we’re thinking, so let’s focus on things that He wants us to think—things that are noble, pure, trustworthy, admirable…(see Philippians 4:8). And remember, you can choose what you think about. So when the devil tries to interject thoughts in your mind, you don’t have to just take them.

Dining Room: Our Desires. We need to come to the point where we can say “God, I only want what You want, and if I’m asking for something You don’t want me to have, then don’t give it to me.” Our desires can cause the biggest problems in our life—especially when someone else gets something we want. But God wants us to be happy for others when they are blessed and trust that He’ll do what is best for us at the right time.

The Living or Family Room: Your Friends. Who are your friends? What do you talk about when you’re with your friends? I’m talking here about the people you spend your time with and those you open your heart to. Does your conversation put a smile on God’s face…or does it grieve Him? Get together with people who love the Word of God and be creative with how you help others. Because there’s one thing for sure: when you get your mind off yourself and focus on blessing someone else, you’ll get happier than you’ve ever been!

The Workroom: Your Legacy. Are you bearing good fruit…or are you just taking up space? I encourage you to work with excellence and integrity. When you choose not to gossip at work, waste company time or participate in things that wouldn’t please Him, then you honor God. And when you honor God, then He will honor you. Remember: We need to do what’s right because it’s right, even when no one’s looking…because God is always with us.

Recreation Room: Your Entertainment. Do you let God decide what movies you watch, the music you listen to or the things you read? There is nothing wrong with having a good time, but our choices also need to honor Him. Likewise, we have to be careful about how much time we devote to entertainment. When it takes a stronger priority in our life than it should, there’s a problem. It’s not that you can’t have any fun; you just need to choose what is best for you and is pleasing to God.

The Hall, Closet, Attic, Garage or Basement: Hidden Things. This is where we hide all those things we don’t think we’ll use again, but we hold on to them just in case…things like self-pity or unforgiveness. God dealt strongly with me about self-pity. But even after I officially gave it up, I put it somewhere in that back closet of my life just in case I wanted to have just one more pity party. How about getting rid of everything that’s not pleasing to God?

Only with God’s Help

What are you holding on to that needs to go? You can’t do any of it without God. Ask Him to help you get rid of everything in the rooms of your life that aren’t pleasing to Him. If you do it in God’s timing and by His grace, it’ll be so much easier. If you try to do it on your own, you’ll be frustrated and miserable with your striving.

Jesus is a divine guest inside of you all the time—one who loves, understands, sees and hears you. He wants to live in oneness with you…to be the centerpiece of everything you do. But, ultimately, the choice is up to you. Will you make Him welcome in every room of your house?

God loves us too much to leave us the way we are. From the moment we give our hearts to Him, He begins pointing out things in our lives that need to change…things we may have never noticed before. And when He does, we have a choice to either cooperate with God…or stay where we are a little bit longer.

I’ll give you an example. For years I wasn’t happy when I wouldn’t get my way. And when I wasn’t happy, I always had something to say about it. My words and my body language let you know that I wasn’t happy.

One day, my husband, Dave, and I were at the mall shopping for paintings to decorate our home. Now, Dave and I don’t always agree when it comes to decorating. Sure enough, we walked into one particular store and he spotted a painting that he loved. As you can probably already guess, I did not like it at all. So I immediately let my opinion be known.

“Dave, I don’t like that painting, and I do not want that painting in the house. We are not going to get that painting.”

“What’s wrong with the painting?” Dave asked.

“I hate that painting,” I countered, determined to get my point across.

Well, if you know anything about Dave, you know that he’s a loving man who doesn’t like to argue. And so he said, “Aw, forget it, just do what you want” and put down the painting.

As we started walking down the mall, I could feel myself kind of celebrating on the inside, knowing I had gotten what I wanted. Right then, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart:

“You know what, Joyce? You think you won, but you really lost.”

That day, I had a choice. I could have chosen to live the God-life and said something like, “Dave, I really don’t like that painting, honey, and I’d rather not get it. Can we look for something we both like?”

Instead, I reacted out of selfishness. I said what I felt like saying and made sure I got just what I wanted. The result? My behavior wasn’t pleasing to God or my husband…and I didn’t grow one bit that day.

Here’s the truth: Saying “no” to what we want is initially painful…our natural inclination is to back away from the pain the moment it starts to hurt. But there’s a reward if we will just stick with it!

The first handful of times that I chose not to argue with Dave (even when I knew I was right!), it was painful. But once I got over the initial pain in my soul, it released a joy and peace and satisfaction that no one could take away from me.

Each time we cooperate with God, we take one more giant step forward. Because when God asks us to cnge, it means that He always has something better to give us—more freedom, greater joy, and greater blessings.

When his father-in-law saw how much Moses was doing for the people, he said, “The thing that you are doing is not good” (verse 17 AMP). He then went on to say that if he continued this way, then Moses would wear out, and the people would get worn-out too. Moses could not do it all by himself. We can’t either.

Philippians 4:13 says we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Now this doesn’t mean God gives us strength to do everything we want or feel like we should do. God gives us His grace and strength to do what HE is calling us to do. And that’s all we should be doing.

When we live like this, we will have peaceful and powerful lives.

So how do we do it? First we have to recognize that if something needs to change, we are going to have to take responsibility to change it. The world is not going to change, the devil is not going to change, and the people in your life may not want to change. But you can change.

The Word of God gives us guidelines and commandments that help us have a better life. For example, the Bible talks about wise thoughtfulness (see Proverbs 1:3). I have a tendency to be a rescuer, but loving people doesn’t always mean helping them. Once I realized that Jesus didn’t go around trying to make people let Him help them, it really set me free in this area. I was set free to be led by the Holy Spirit about who to help and how much I should help them.

Here’s another example. The Bible says the borrower is a slave to the lender (see Proverbs 22:7). Don’t be like the guy with the bumper sticker that says “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.”

Whatever you are struggling with – relationships, finances, sickness – the Bible has wisdom to help you set boundaries to change how you handle your situation. You’ll find that godly boundaries make your relationships healthier, make you feel better, and help you keep your finances in order and under control.

With God’s help, you can manage your life and not let it manage you. This is what it means to live within the boundaries of God’s Word…and not on the edge.

What do you want out of life? Do you have a dream for your life, your children, your finances or your marriage? Is there something you are hoping for: an idea, a goal, a plan or vision? Whatever it is that you want, what is it going to take to reach it?

We need to be reaching toward our dreams all the time because God didn’t create us for passivity or to be static in life. So if you’ve got your life in park, you need to get it in drive and start moving toward the dreams God has put in your heart.

See, the things you want are not going to just fall into your lap. You are going to have to reach out and grab them. You’re going to have to get a holy determination in you that says, “If anyone can have the life God wants them to have, then it’s going to be me!”

But you need to remember that you’re probably not going to get there overnight, so it’s important to find the balance between being content and striving toward those desires.

Paul said he learned to be content in all situations: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:12 NIV). He never got upset about where he was, but at the same time, he continued to look forward to what God had in store for him down the road.

I was good at looking forward. God gave me a big dream for this ministry, but at the time, I didn’t fully understand the contentment part Paul was talking about—enjoying where you are until you get to where you’re going. So I spent a lot of years allowing the dream God gave me to torment me, instead of enjoying the journey.

Over time I discovered that while it’s important to keep your God-given dreams in front of you (see Habakkuk 2:2-3), you also have to learn to be content so you won’t be miserable on the way to the fulfillment of your dreams. At the same time, we should never allow contentment to make us so comfortable that we forget about the vision.

When my husband, Dave, and I were first married, I was a very different person. Because I had been abused by men throughout my childhood, I was pretty messed up emotionally and had a lot of wounds in my soul. Well, Dave had been praying for a wife, asking God to give him someone who needed help. Then he met me! He married me because he truly believed it was God’s will and he loved me, but he didn’t really know what he was getting in to.

My father was very manipulating and controlling. I had learned from his example that when I wasn’t getting my way, the way to react was to get mad and stay mad until I got what I wanted. I remember times when I was so mad at Dave, I wouldn’t talk to him for three weeks! When he came into the room, I’d leave it. At bedtime, I’d practically sleep on the edge of the mattress so he wouldn’t touch me.

Now, Dave is a peace-loving guy, and he was very patient and just put up with it for a long time. Then he came across a book about confrontation. He read it and told me, “I read this book, and I’m going to start confronting you because we both know the way you act is not right. And we both know the way you treat me is disrespectful.”

Then he warned me: “I’m going to start confronting you, and you won’t like it. But if I don’t do it, you and I probably won’t stay married, and I won’t be being obedient to God.”

This was very hard to hear, but I knew he was right. And in my heart, I really wanted to do what was right. I had Jesus in my heart and loved God, but there was rebellion in my soul because of hurts from the past. It took Dave confronting me to help me get to the point where I surrendered my will completely to God. And by the grace and mercy of God, I was able to change my ways and treat Dave the way God wanted me to.

Why is it that when two people who come from equally painful backgrounds, one can spend their whole life being miserable and unhappy while the other learns how to love and enjoy life?

Really, it’s not our circumstances that keep us from being happy and fulfilled—it’s the choices we make. I’ve been through a lot of difficulties in my life, but I just can’t stand to live anymore without enthusiasm, passion and excitement.

How determined are you to enjoy your life?

Believe it or not, God has great plans for each of us and it’s amazing what He will allow us to do if we choose to faithfully pursue them. It’s also amazing what God will help you overcome.

The Power of a Determined Spirit

In Luke 5, the Bible tells us about a group of men who were determined to help a paralyzed man. Verse 18 says, “And behold, some men were bringing on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed, and they tried to carry him in and lay him before [Jesus].”

Now, they had a plan to get their friend healed. But when they got there, the crowd was a lot bigger than they expected. So what did they do? Verse 19 says, “Finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him with his stretcher through the tiles into the midst, in front of Jesus.”

Now, that’s determination.

I wonder how many people today would carry a paralyzed man up to the roof of a house on a stretcher, take the roof apart, tie ropes onto the stretcher and lower him down into the middle of a crowded room so that he could receive a healing?

The crowd may have been quite offended by their aggressiveness, but Jesus wasn’t. He was impressed with their faith! The Bible says that when Jesus saw how confident they were in His ability to heal, He said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven!”

You see, God wants us to be aggressive in our faith, either in spirit or by taking whatever action He leads us to take. When God tells us to take action, that’s what we need to do. We may not know how it’s going to work out, but God still wants us to step out in faith.

When King David was a boy, a giant called Goliath came against the armies of Israel and the soldiers were terrified to fight him (see 1 Samuel 17). But David, who was a young shepherd at this point in his life, came forward and asked, “What will be done for the man who slays Goliath?”

Now, that was a pretty bold move on David’s part. In fact, his oldest brother, Eliab, began to mock him, saying something to the effect of, “What are YOU doing here? You’re no soldier. Don’t you have a few sheep to tend to?”

But David was pretty used to that kind of attitude coming from his brothers—and he already knew who he was in his relationship to God.

So how did he respond? It says in verse 30 that “David turned away from Eliab.” In other words, he just went on doing what he was doing. That’s exactly what we need to learn how to do.

See, when we believe we’ve got an assignment from God—a dream, a goal, a plan or a vision—we need to stop thinking about what everybody else says we can’t do and just focus on who God says we are and what God says we can do.

Another place I like to go for encouragement in this area is Genesis 13: the story of Abram and Lot.

Let’s first look at verses 8 and 9 (AMP). “Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I beg of you, between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself, I beg of you, from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

Now, because of Abram’s willingness to keep peace in the family, God blessed him.

Take a look at verses 14-17. “The Lord said to Abram…Lift up now your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your posterity forever. And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth, then could your descendants also be counted. Arise, walk through the land, the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to you.”

After that, I bet Abram thought it was worth it to let Lot get his way.

I encourage you to apply this lesson to your own life. Maybe somebody’s done you wrong, they’ve taken something from you and left you with nothing. God’s got a word for you today. Stop looking back. Stop internalizing everything. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Love Gives Up the Right to Be Right

Romans 12:16 (AMP) says, “Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty (snobbish, high-minded, exclusive), but readily adjust yourself to [people, things] and give yourselves to humble tasks. Never overestimate yourself or be wise in your own conceits.”

God’s faithful and He’ll keep His promises, but you have to live in faith, doing what you can, by His grace, to get along with people. Get your marriage sorted out. Get your friendships sorted out. Get things sorted out at work. I guarantee that you will get more out of it than you ever put into it yourself.

Several years ago, God convicted me about how I needed to take better care of myself and exercise regularly. So I’ve been making a consistent effort to work out, and I’ve noticed some exciting changes and improvements in my health. I actually have muscles now that I didn’t know I had before

I can honestly say I feel better now and have more energy these days than I did when I was younger – and I’m in my late sixties. But I’ve had my share of health problems through the years. Many years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to go through surgery; there have also been other “hormone” issues and I ended up having a hysterectomy. And I’ve also experienced common illnesses like many people do. In fact, recently, I’ve been dealing with a back problem that hasn’t been easy to fix. So I understand what it’s like to be sick and frustrated or scared by it. And at times God has directed me to go to doctors and use medicine, which I’m grateful I could have. At other times, He’s asked me to just trust Him and wait on Him. The bottom line is, God always wants me to depend on Him and put my trust in Him for my healing – whatever my problem may be.

I remember when God spoke to my heart that if I will spend five minutes a day waiting on Him, He will give me the healing I need. I managed to do it for a few days before I decided I didn’t have time to do it every day. But then I realized if I’m willing to go sit in a doctor’s office and wait as long as I have to for an appointment, which usually takes a lot longer than five minutes, how can I say I don’t have time to wait on God for healing just five minutes every day? I can tell you since I’ve started doing it again, may back is probably 95 percent better.

Along with putting our trust in God, we also have to use common sense. We have to take responsibility for taking care of ourselves. This means getting the stress out of your life, resting when you need to, cutting things out of your schedule that God is not asking you to do, eating healthy food, exercising regularly and getting the right amount of sleep you need on a consistent basis. This information probably isn’t new to you, but it’s important for us to get it that when we do our part, we can then expect God to give us His healing power, energy and strength. And when we find ourselves sick and hurting because we haven’t done what we were supposed to do, we just need to confess it to God, repent of it, receive His forgiveness and ask Him to help us make better choices and honor Him in our bodies.