Daily Devotional Day 98

Jesus Christ said, " You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God." The kingdom of God is a spiritual world and must be touched by our spirits. When Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, the emphasis was not on sin, as it is so often presented to us.It was on being awakened spiritually.

This, unfortunately, is not what many experience today in church. The result is we dwell on the law trying to bring people to repentance from sin and a constant push to stimulate people to serve the Lord. Even after someone has been born again, we revert back to the outside in methods of ministering to the people of God and train them only in their five senses and according to the law. It's like winding up a toy and coming back later for it to need rewinding.

For some, this rewinding must happen every Sunday for others every few days. This system of rehabilitation is similar to secular rehabilitation. There is no internal change. The better we are at stimulating people, the more people will keep from sin. Take away the stimulation from outside, and they revert back to their old ways. It is a trap especially for leaders who weary themselves constantly trying to come up with new ways to accomplish the stimulation of the natural man. It is nothing more than entertainment at the cost of burning out our leaders.

We need this external touch initially in our journey, but we must keep moving forward to have internal growth in a relationship with the Lord. This is where the transformation stems from. Transformation is an inside-out process.

Practice daily communion with the Holy Spirit. Lord, change us from the inside out.