Live Free with Josh Howerton - God Will Use Your Legacy | Ep. 38 | Wednesday March 29, 2023

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

God’s goal is to shape you to be more like Jesus. It doesn’t matter where your starting point is—there is always incredible life-change through Him! In this episode, you’ll learn that even after your time on earth has come to an end, God will use your life to touch the lives of others. You will make an eternal impact because you allowed God to transform you from the inside out. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I hope you're having a great day. My name is Mike Bro, and every day we're just dispensing a little hope through a walk through God's Word.

And thanks for just making a few minutes every day during a week so we can do this together. And we are walking through a little letter in the New Testament section of the Bible called Philippians. So if you go to the middle of the Bible and keep taking a right, you'll get there. But it was written in the first century, and it feels as current as 2023. And by the way, if you don't know this, that's the way God's word is. It is fresh and alive and speaks to us like it was written specifically for you and me. Because it was. And we're walking through this letter just some little bite-sized chunks,

and we've spent the first few sessions talking about gratitude. Just being thankful for people in our lives. And if you're just joining us, I'd encourage you to go back and catch the first few sessions. It'll only take you a few minutes. and that can introduce you, I think, to a daily practice that just might be a relational game changer for you. And today we get to a powerful verse of scripture is found in Philippians 1-6, and this truth has crammed so much hope in my soul. This verse has kept me, honestly, from throwing in the towel many times,

and I hope it does the same for you. And here it is, I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it's finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. And I've always loved the way this assures me that it's God doing the work on the inside of me. And I'm so grateful for that because that takes me out of mere behavior modification attempts and into real inside-out transformation. You know, I think we've talked before how willpower is kind of better described as will worship. where we're pretty much saying, I got this.

I can handle this. I'll beat this on my own. I don't need anybody's help. I certainly don't need God's help. I'll just reach down into my humanity, and I'll become a better version of myself. I had to come to a point in my life where I had to acknowledge that self-help

was really an oxymoron. Because of self-help could really help. I wouldn't need self-help. I, in fact, needed help beyond. myself. So I invited God into my powerlessness. And I try to surrender to his power every day. And you know what? He's working on the inside of everybody who will invite him to do that. There's another part of this verse that's a cool reminder to me is not only is God working on the inside of me. Did you catch that he's not finished with any of us yet? Some of you know,

I love doing, you know, home renovation, remodeling houses and stuff. My wife makes so much fun of me. He says, you know what, you're like Chip and Joanna. You do the demo stuff and you rebuild stuff and then you go pick out the pillows. Hey, what can I say? But when you're a homeowner and you're doing some kind of remodeling, you know, you're never really done, right? There's always something you're tweaking. You also need to know this about me personally. I am one big-time fixer upper.

I am a huge renovation project myself. God has had to do some major demo in me. He's had to move some walls, had to tear up. out some insulation, had to throw a bunch of stuff in a dumpster, had to strengthen my foundation, had to sand me down, brighten me up, improve the lighting in my life. And the cool thing is, he's not done. After all these years, I'm still under construction. That makes me smile when I read these words, that the God who started this project is always on the job site, and he will keep right on working in me from the inside out. In fact, Ephesus chapter 2,

verse 10 tells us that you and I are God's masterpiece. Isn't that cool? Romans 8 tells us that God's goal is not just to make us better humans, but to shape us to be more like Jesus. And gang, only he has the power to pull that off. Only he has the power to move into a person's life and bring about that kind of renovation of the heart. And the good news is Jesus, the master carpenter, is on the job, and he will keep on working until the day he comes back. And I also love how it says in this verse that it doesn't say that God will keep on working in and through us until the day we die. Noah says he will keep on using our lives, working through our lives, until Christ returns.

In other words, long after you and I are dead and gone, our lives, our legacy, God will still use them to touch the lives of other people. We will make an eternal impact because we surrendered our lives and let him go to work. on the inside of us. So got any demo that needs to be done on the inside of you today, any walls that need to be moved, any walls need to be torn down, any junk that might need to go to the dumpster, got an attitude that maybe you could use a little refresh,

I invite you to let him move inside and start that construction project. Hey, move over HGTV, because God's really good at this stuff, and he'll keep on until someday he'll finally be finished. when we see him face to face. Man, I hope you have an awesome day. We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship,

join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.combe.combe.