Step Three - Turning Over My Will And My Life

Step 3 - TURNING OVER MY WILL AND MY LIFE

The experience of life outside the will and care of God is helplessness and frustration when trials and temptations come our way.  The good news is that when we respond to God’s gracious offer of new life in relationship with Him, we become His beloved children and all God’s resources are made available to us.  That’s what Step 3 of the 12 Steps is all about.

Step 3 – We made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood Him.

God’s offer to us today:  Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for all our sins and failures - past, present, and future.  To put our will and our life into God’s care involves turning away from our self-willed thoughts and ways and opening our hearts to God’s forgiveness. 

Jesus paid an enormous price to make this possible for us.  He died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins.  He was our substitute.  He takes our sin and He give us God’s forgiveness and new life. 

It is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6

If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:9

Turning our will and our life over to the care of God always involves action.  If we say that we have entrusted our life to God but no change results in our behaviour, then we are only fooling ourselves.  Accepting Jesus’ payment for our sins on the cross brings us freedom from the bondage of sin and death plus eternal life with our Heavenly Father. 

Here’s the interesting bit, in a way that may surprise us and others, when we make this choice, we will become individuals who truly want to please God and find satisfaction in doing so.  We start to pay close attention to the word of God as written in the Bible and allow God’s Holy Spirit to direct us in all our affairs. 

Heavenly Father, even though we don’t completely understand it all, we choose to turn away from our self-willed living.  We turn to You and ask You to forgive us and give us the new life that Jesus wond for us on the cross.  We choose to believe that our sins are forgiven. Through Jesus we stand clean and whole in Your presence.  Help us to daily walk by faith, even as we learn to walk this out.  Amen

Now, today’s challenge is this:  We must pay close attention to the word of God as written in the Bible and allow God’s Holy Spirit to direct us in all our affairs.  That’s what it means to turn our will AND our life over to the care of God.  Long lasting change is built on God’s principles for living as they reshape our thinking and behaving.  We’ll speak more about that tomorrow.