God’s Spirit takes up residence inside of us when we accept His salvation and submit our lives to Him. And when He’s running the show, that means we no longer get to live the way we did before we chose to follow Him — the way the world encourages us to live. He’s the “landLord” now, and it’s our responsibility to submit ourselves to live under His authority and for His glory.

God went all in to save us. Why would we expect to do anything less than go all in and give Him our lives in response? He holds all the cards — the only winning strategy in this life is to bet everything on Him knowing He’ll take care of us every step of the way.

When we choose to follow Jesus, we’re branded with a “rebirth mark” that appears like a bullseye to the devil. He comes after us with temptations he knows we’ll fall for. And while temptation may be inevitable, Scripture tells us that if we submit to God and resist the devil, he’ll flee from us.

The Church is many things — including the Bride of Christ. Jesus loves His Bride so much that He died for her, and the entire Bible is a letter from God in which He pours out His love for us. We have a choice: to go head-to-head with Him and fight Him for control of our lives, or let Him be the head of His Church and submit to His will for us.

It’s “easy” to become a Christian and claim Christ as our Savior; the real struggle comes when we have to yield to Him as our Lord. Too often we profess that Jesus has saved us from our sins, but we refuse to relinquish control over our lives and instead we continue in bondage to our earthly desires. Only once we submit to Him will we experience the freedom that comes from surrender and that empowers us to grow more and more like Him.

To prostrate ourselves before the Lord is to humble ourselves and submit to His will above our own. Jesus warned us that we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses if we want to follow Him. In order to obey that command, we have to be willing to commit to going where He leads us — no matter what suffering it may involve.

Jesus tells us that in order to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves. But more often, we wind up denying God and choosing our own will over His. Unless we submit to His leading in our lives, He can never fully live in us and through us. We have to let go of our selfish ways, die to our desires, and take on His life instead of our own.

Jesus invites us to ask for ANYTHING — but that doesn’t always mean the answer to our prayers will be what we’d like to hear. Instead of asking for our own selfish desires, what if we asked God for whatever it is that HE wants to give us? When we yield to His answers and offer our lives completely to Him, He uses us in ways we never could have expected.

Pride is one of the biggest barriers that prevents us from turning to God. The Bible promises that one day, every knee will bow before Him, but we can’t wait until eternity to do so. When we submit ourselves to Him here on earth, He’s able to carry out His plan and His purpose for us — and no matter how far gone we think we may be, there’s hope for anyone who’s prepared to yield their will to His.