John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Your relationship with Jesus is all about you not only being loved by Jesus, but about you REALIZING how much you are loved by Jesus. Jesus just finished taking you through a devotion that dug deep into the fact that NOTHING is able to separate you from that love. Now you are looking at the fact that His love is not only secure and constant, it is intense.

There have been a few people you have trusted during your lifetime; but, the person you were really trusting was yourself. The only reason you trusted these other people was because YOU decided to put your trust in what they said. As long as what they said made sense to you, you continued to allow them to have your trust. If you are going to have complete trust in Jesus, then YOU are going to have to be convinced that Jesus is trustworthy. He is going to have to give you enough proof so you can feel comfortable with putting your trust in Him.

Rev 3:20 (NIV) Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me. You must understand the gentleness of Jesus. You can look at God’s power and authority and assume He does whatever He wants, wherever He wants, whenever He wants, to whomever He wants. But, here you see Jesus honoring your will. He stood at the door of your heart asking you to let Him save you. He now stands at the door to every room in your heart and is continuing to knock.

Nothing is being done by Jesus in your life that you haven’t given Him permission to do. Rom 8:8-9 (NIV) Those CONTROLLED by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are CONTROLLED not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. When you think of control, you may think of domination, servitude or slavery. You may think that God is making all the decisions without consulting you.

You came under the control of the Holy Spirit at salvation. When He came inside you, He took CONTROL of your life. Yet, no doubt you have noticed that you are still running your life. How can the Holy Spirit take control over you and you still be running your life? He took control over those things in your life that had become habits and addictions. In other words, you had lost control over many areas of your life. His control is protecting you from their control. He is keeping them from taking away your free will.

Once you came under the control of the Holy Spirit through salvation, He gave you your life back. You got your God-given free will back so you could decide what you wanted and didn’t want. Gal 5:1 (NIV) It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not LET yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. How is it you have all this new found freedom? By being under the control of the Holy Spirit.

John 8:36 (NIV) So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Your relationship with Jesus is all about freedom of choice; every decision will be made by you even if you ALLOW Jesus to tell you what to do. BUT, you aren’t powerful enough to protect that freedom. Holy-Spirit-control creates a permission based relationship with you and Him. He controls what you give Him permission to control. When that happens, you are able to do what would be impossible for you to do.

Rom 8:13 (NIV) For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if BY the Spirit YOU put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. You can see that the Bible is reasoning with you. It is trying to get YOU to yield to the Holy Spirit’s power and YOU put to death the misdeeds of the body. The Holy Spirit and His power will bring you and your body under His control by you deciding that, that is what you want. BUT, that decision is made moment-by-moment and issue-by-issue by you.