1 Cor 2:9-12 (NIV) However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him"-- but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit Who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

We are spending a lot of time getting closer to God. And, we have crowed out those activities that were dishonoring to God. We did that by involving ourselves in more special activities. What can possibly be left? We never really seem to have time to do anything for God. Actually we will be doing it with God. But, the main issue is, we have seemingly run out of places to crowd God in. It seems like we have exhausted all areas that can be dedicated to God. Step Three, however, is asking for more time spent with God. It involves getting rid of things that are not going to have any eternal benefit.

IF WE LOOK AT OUR LIFE AND FIND OURSELVES UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO GIVE UP THESE TIME CONSUMERS, WE NEED TO GO BACK TO STEP TWO OR EVEN STEP ONE. WE SHOULD NEVER MOVE ON TO THE NEXT STEP IF IT SEEMS TOO HARD OR UNREASONABLE.

We are faced with some real strongholds of "legal" time consumers. It will be a lot easier to get rid of these things if we go to God and find out what He want to replace them with. Once again, light drives out darkness. It even drives out gray areas. This time all the ministry possibilities are the light we are going to be exposing ourselves to. Through prayer, mission trips, doing research concerning what ministries are available, seeking God concerning the possibility of starting something new, talking to church leaders, trying out various opportunities, and digging into the Bible to see what it is suggesting; we will find things to replace the unbeneficial things found in our lives.

Step Three is dealing with the heart. The place where we establish how we feel about things. And, Step Three is dealing with the mind. The place where we process all our information, build our belief system, and decide what we will and will not do. As we expose ourselves to the things of God, it changes how we feel in our heart about things. Our emotions start to turn from physical and worldly pleasure to the pleasure of God. Fun, excitement, enjoyment, and joy are gradually experienced in our heart from exposure to the things of God. This experience changes our mind. Where at first we did the right thing with God. Then we did fun things in the world. Now we are pure in our emotions. And, we are singular in the thinking of our mind. This opens up a new type of fun and pleasure. It is the thrill of helping hurting people. We have never known pleasure and fun until we join God in what He is calling us to do. We have all been disappointed when we got involved in something that someone else wanted us to do. When we look inside the church structure, we only see a few openings. Let's see, there is ushering, parking cars, greeting, cleaning and setting up, teaching a class, taking care of babies or kids, etc. Now, if our ministry is in one of those areas, WOW! But, if it isn't, boredom!

We have to put an all-out effort into finding that thing that God wants us to do. Until we do, we will find ourselves falling back into the things of the world. Our mind with remain double. Once we find our God-given career, we will lose our love for making money to stay alive or get ahead.