Live Free with Josh Howerton - Staying in Step with the Holy Spirit | Ep. 310 | Friday, April 12, 2024

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

When confronted with our weaknesses, we often try to fix ourselves under our own power. But that just won’t work. Our pride, anger, envy, or procrastination are not enemies we can defeat on our own. We need help. Thankfully we have a God who is with us and wants to fight for us. Take time to ask the Holy Spirit to lead you and empower you to follow His will. 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, happy Friday, everybody. Thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive. My name is Bro, and we've been talking about the fatal four this week. Been exposing some dangerous enemies who want to do more than just bust our brackets. There are schemes from the evil one to take us out. We talked about pride, anger, envy, and procrastination. If you missed any of the episodes, I'd encourage you to go back and catch up. As you and I dive into God's Word and we walk with the Holy Spirit and we stay and step with him, he gives us a game to. plan to win against anything the enemy throws at us. I just want to wrap all this up with a scripture from Galatians 3-3. Paul the writer asked the readers, he asked us, he says,

okay, so how foolish can you be? What are you thinking? After starting your new lives in the spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? See, the tendency is when we hear things like we have over the past couple of weeks, we just say, I mean, I got a sock, I got a sock cut up, I got to try harder. We say, you know what, those fatal four things, they are not going to take me down. And so we bear down and summon up our willpower. And we never get around to asking God for help. And that's why Paul asked here, like, well, after starting your new life and a spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Why would you settle for a little behavior modification when you could be transformed.

Why would you rely on your own feeble strength when you can access the power of the Holy Spirit? The same power that raised Jesus from the dead. I'm telling you, walk with him, depend on him, live in the awareness of his presence in your life 24-7, because he is in you. You see, when your pride begins to rear its ugly head, you ask him for help and humility in the moment. In fact, asking for help, that is, humility. Lean not on your own understanding. Don't lean on your own feelings. Don't let your own appetites and desires guide your life. Come down off the throne. Lay your ego on the altar. Listen. Really listen to someone better, stronger, and wiser than you. And let him lead you

throughout the day. When your anger starts to heat up, before you do some damage with it, before you do some damage to other people, damage to your own soul, ask him to calm you down. in the moment. He's with you. He's in you. Ask him for gentleness. Ask him for kindness. Asking for patience. Let him take you to the root of that agitation, that bitterness, that rage, and let him settle you down. When you start to fall victim to the comparison trap, and envy that green-eyed monster wants to take over your thoughts, you go to him. You listen to the Holy Spirit when he says, you don't need to keep scrolling through this stuff. I mean, looking at all this stuff is just doing something to your contentment level. And you stop scrolling. And you start

thanking him in the moment for your life. You thank him for his presence. You thank him for his goodness, for his love, his creative genius, his truth, his kindness, his guidance. You thank him for making you you you. And when you want to fall back into those old, undisciplined, apathetic, procrastinating ways, ask him to help you stay with the game plan, the work ethic, the budget, the need to delegate, the start doing list and the stop doing list, and work with him. Stay in step with him, and he will do all kinds of goods things inside of you.

Let me just leave you with one more verse from Galatians. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you'll be able to withstand the fatal for and beyond. We're going to have a special guest all next week, So don't miss a single episode.

Man, I hope you all have a great weekend. Love you and see you soon. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.com.