Making Room for the Holy Spirit in Your Life

You are only as full of the Holy Spirit as you allow yourself to be. Unless you make room for him to work in your life, you will remain empty.

To make room we must die to ourselves, by which I mean we need to cut out of our lives the things that keep us from being in connection with God.

It has been about two months now since I threw my TV in the garbage and my relationship with God has not been this deep in years. It was not just the throwing out of the TV, it was replacing it with God. If I had just started reading sci-fi novels or running five miles a day in place of watching television, I would not have truly died to myself. I would have just replaced one distraction with another.

To truly die to myself I had to replace that distraction with God and God alone. So all the time I spent sitting in front of the television is now spent either reading Scripture and theology or praying and of course writing much more.

When I get tempted to go buy another television, I am reminded that catching up on the latest depravity coming out of Hollywood is not going to benefit me in any way.

Jesus said in Mark 9:43-48 “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

What Jesus means is that if what we own (the hand) is causing us to sin we should get rid of it. If what we are chasing after (the foot) is leading us into sin or away from God we need to stop and turn back to Him. If what we desire (the eye) is keeping us from entering into relationship with God, we need to cut that out as well.

These things could be as obvious as TV or drugs and alcohol, or it could be more subtle things that are keeping you from God, like toxic relationships or worrying about work when you don’t need to. It could be anything that is keeping you from getting deeper into relationship with God. When we get rid of such vices, we make room in our lives for God and the Holy Spirit enters more deeply into our lives and our hearts.

What things do you need to cut out of your life?