Are you letting God into every part of your life?
As a young man in my 20s, I had become very serious about my faith. I’ve talked about this before on the podcast. I studied the Bible several hours, almost every day. I prayed earnestly for long periods of time. I was very active in church and was in several leadership roles from time to time. I was growing spiritually in so many ways and had a pretty positive approach to life. But I wasn’t really letting God into every detail of my life.
Scroll all the way to the bottom for all the Bible quotes
During that time I often struggled with sensual and lustful thoughts. Whenever these thoughts flared up in my life, I felt terribly guilty. I knew I was supposed to have all my thoughts be pure and holy.
Sometimes I felt like a pendulum swinging back and forth between being spiritually minded and materially minded.
And for years I never told anyone about this struggle.
I wasn’t letting God into the secret places in my heart
One day I realized I had been trying to pretend I didn’t really have this problem. There were even times when I deluded myself into thinking I was hiding this struggle from God.
I was finally honest with myself and God. I admitted I had to face this head on. And I said to God something to the effect of: Okay God, I’m not going to pretend anymore. I’m going to be honest with myself and with You. I need Your help to get rid of these sensual and lustful thoughts. I have tried to do it on my own, but that hasn’t worked. I need Your help. I’m not going to try to hide this from You anymore.
I realized I had been afraid to let God into this dark chamber of my heart because I knew it was such a mess and so unlike the spiritual approach to life I was trying to live.
But being honest with myself and with God really caused a wave of relief to wash over me. I felt a little taste or freedom and hope I hadn’t felt before.
So I got over the embarrassment that I hadn’t healed this myself and called someone who worked with young people to help them solve their problems from a spiritual perspective.
Letting God in brought freedom
When I explained the situation, I was convinced this lady was going to be very judgmental of me, but she acted like it was not such a terrible problem that it couldn’t be resolved and healed.
Again, I felt a wave of freedom and hope. Then she said something that has stayed with me ever since: James, when you feel tempted by these sensual thoughts, instead of feeling guilty, thank God for giving you dominion over them.
This idea, all by itself, was a spiritual balm to my guilty soul. And so the next time I felt tempted by those all too familiar sensual thoughts, I thanked God for giving me dominion over them. The surge of freedom and dominion I felt was overwhelming.
I cannot say I was never tempted in this way again, but I began to claim and win my freedom that day, so many years ago.
The reason I go into this story is because the turning point came when I began letting God into every detail of my life, especially those hidden places in my heart, where I knew there was darkness, but didn’t want to admit it to myself or to God, since supposedly I knew better.
If you want to experience the fullness of God’s blessing, His mercy, protection, and healing presence in every detail of your life, the solution is letting God into every detail, every nook and cranny of your life, your heart.
God wants your whole heart
You can’t surrender half your heart to God and expect to experience His full blessing. God wants your whole heart and makes this promise to you, just as much as he did to the people Jeremiah was prophesying to. God says,
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 NIV
We need to seek God with our whole heart and give God access to our whole heart.
Now you may be thinking: Hey James, this is all really helpful, but how do I do that? How do I seek God with my whole heart. How do I begin letting God into every nook and cranny of my life?
The first step to letting God in
This is such a great question. I think the first thing is to realize your need for letting God into every detail of your life. And then not being afraid to open up in this way to God. There is nothing to fear when you are honest with God about where you are and what you’re struggling with. God will never leave you where you think you are, but God opens your eyes and show you the place He has prepared for you.
Jesus, as always, gives us the best way to get started letting God into every facet of our lives, when he summarizes God’s will for us in the Two Great Commandments.
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Matthew 22:37-39 NIV
To the degree you are loving God with all your heart, your soul, and mind, you are letting God have free and full access to your heart, your soul, and your mind. The more you love God with your whole being, the more you let go of the material things that clutter your heart, your mind, and your soul.
The more we yield to the fullness of God’s presence in our lives, the more we feel that fullness of His presence. This was Jesus’s approach and it can be ours.
Jesus letting God into every detail of life
I quote this verse all the time here on the podcast, partly because it’s a powerful insight into how Jesus was able to do everything he did, and partly because it’s a reminder that we can follow Jesus’s example. Jesus said,
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son [referring to himself] can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John 5:19 NIV
Jesus was constantly letting God direct every detail of his life. He constantly was alert to see what God was doing. Because he saw God loving, forgiving, and healing people, he could do the same.
The same is true for what Jesus said to people.
For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. John 12:49, 50 NIV
That’s really remarkable isn’t it? If Jesus had focused more on what people were saying and doing and using that as the basis for what he said and did, he would have not been able to see and hear God as clearly as he did.
Do you want to be more like Jesus?
If you want to be more like Jesus by letting God have full access to your heart, your hands, your mind, and your whole life, then it’s time to follow Jesus’s example of focusing on what God is doing and listening to what God is saying to you, instead of focusing on your own random thoughts and opinions or what the world is trying to convince you of.
Now I realize, it’s easy to say all this. It may not always be so easy to actually do it. Letting God into your life completely comes with practice. It’s not a one-time moment of clarity. It’s a daily and life-time discipline of yielding and re-yielding to God, time and time again until it’s a natural process and becomes part of your everyday life.
But sometimes we just don’t want to face the mistakes we’ve made or the mess in our lives caused by various circumstances. We try to keep up a good appearance with our friends and family, at work, and church. We want everyone to think we’re a good person who has our act together.
But when we put up a good picture on the outside of our lives but don’t deal with the mess on the inside of our lives, it eventually catches up with us. And sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing this. We’re not even aware that we’re hiding things deep in our heart. Or we know there’s some kind of darkness in there but we’re not sure what it is and we don’t want to face it.
You are not alone in this
But you are not on your own. You don’t have to, and really cannot, do this all on your own without God’s help. Whenever you find yourself in this situation, and it takes some honest time of self-reflection to get there, this verse from Psalms can be a powerful prayer:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23, 24 NKJV
There’s no reason for not letting God have full access to your heart. Because, in a way, He already does. God knows everything. You cannot hide anything from God. And if you think you are, you’re only fooling yourself, like I was.
Jesus letting God direct him
Think of Jesus going everywhere he went preaching the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and bringing its message of healing and salvation to all who would listen.
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. Matthew 9:35 NIV
He went to all the towns and villages. He didn’t miss a single one. If you had lived back then, Jesus would have visited your town. Would you have listened to him? Would you have been receptive to his new way of thinking and acting? Or would you have resisted his message like some of the religious leaders did?
Are you ready and willing to hear the good news that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, or do you hold onto the world’s insistence that the kingdom of chaos is at hand and that heaven is far away?
Are you willing to let the message of Christ enter into every town and village in your heart, into every nook and cranny of your thinking?
As I mentioned, Jesus only said what God told him to. That means wherever he went, whoever he met, whatever he said, the only words that came out of his mouth were the words God told him to say.
When Jesus went into every town and village, he spoke every word God told him to. When Christ goes into every town and village, every nook and cranny of your heart, he proclaims every word that comes directly from God.
Christ is knocking at your door
In the book of Revelation there’s an image of Jesus standing at a door knocking.
Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Revelation 3:20 NLT
That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. Jesus comes over for a meal. This is not something that happened only once 2,000 years ago. Every day Christ knocks at the door of your heart and your thinking.
When you open up the locked and dark chambers of your heart, where you have consciously or unconsciously, hidden away hurts and fears, guilt and shame, it allows the light of Christ to dispel the darkness.
And Christ doesn’t get rid of only part of the darkness, but all of it.
Not too long after I started The Bible Speaks to You Podcast, I did an episode about why we might not want to let Christ come into our lives when he knocks on the door of our lives. Episode 14 – Would You Let Jesus in Your House if You Hadn’t Cleaned Up for Weeks?
When you let Christ into your heart, you’re literally letting God’s message of hope, healing, and salvation in.
Saul was not letting God have complete access to his heart
One of the most dramatic examples of this in the Bible is the conversion of Saul after his experience on the road to Damascus. Christ appears to him and rebukes his persecution of the Jesus’s followers and he is humbled with blindness.
When he arrives in Damascus, he prays and fasts for three days waiting to see what God will do with him.
Saul believed with his whole heart that he loved God with his whole heart, soul, and mind. But his self-righteousness had closed off certain portions of his heart to God’s full message which was made manifest in Christ.
When Saul opened his heart to Christ, listened to what Christ revealed to him, and accepted Jesus as the Messiah, not only was he healed of blindness, but he was empowered to share the gospel of Christ in so many towns and villages.
Letting God give you all His love through Christ
When you fully accept Christ, the full essence of Christ, the full message of God’s love for all mankind, into every nook and cranny of your thoughts and affections, you will also be empowered to share Christ in ways you never could have imagined possible.
It opens up infinite possibilities for good in your life and for you to bless others. You will experience your God-given freedom and dominion over the temptations and influences of the material world.
Now, you may not have the same kind of dramatic experience Saul had. That’s okay. It’s really about letting God into every tiny detail of your life.
What does that look like? It means letting God and His standards of love, honesty, purity, and humility, to mention just a few, permeate every aspect and activity, every detail, of your life. It means being the same loving, caring, unselfish person in your private life as you are in public. And vice versa.
If you are loving, caring, and humble in your family life, bring those qualities to your job. If you always are loving and supportive of others, but are critical of yourself, letting God have full access to your love for yourself can bring a deep inner peace that can’t come from anywhere else.
Are you letting God have full access to your whole heart?
Take an honest look at yourself and see if there’s any area of your life you have not been letting God have complete access to. When you open that door in your heart, His love will flood in.
I had a friend years ago who said he had no problem trusting God with personal problems, but when it came to his business, he had a hard time knowing how to pray for answers. I don’t know why he had that little chamber of his life closed to God, but it was something he realized he needed to pray about and open up to God to help him in his business.
When you open your whole heart, every facet of your life, to God’s presence, guidance, love, forgiveness, and even His tender rebukes, you will feel God’s presence as you never have before.
Letting God into every nook and cranny of your life, you’ll discover things you never knew were possible. You’ll see God’s love in everything you do and with everyone you meet. You’ll be where God wants you to be. You’ll say what God wants you to say, maybe without even realizing it. You will do what God wants you to do. You will be blessed and you’ll be a blessing to others in the process.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by learning to think, pray, and love like Jesus. Contact him here.
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Bible References
Jeremiah 29:13 NIV
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Matthew 22:37-39 NIV
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
John 5:19 NIV
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son [referring to himself] can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 12:49, 50 NIV
49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.
Psalm 139:23, 24 NKJV
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
24 And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Matthew 9:35 NIV
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.
Revelation 3:20 NLT
20 Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.
