Spending time with the Father each morning could be the lifestyle shift you need to move your Christian walk from reactive mode to proactive mode, and super-charge your relationship with Him.
Many Christians feel they should spend time with the Lord each morning, but schedule or personality type make it difficult to sustain, and the enemy seizes the opportunity to introduce guilt, shame, and condemnation. That’s not from the Lord! The Lord is extending an invitation and opportunity each morning to His beloved children.
In this episode, Pastor Joe McIntyre discusses the various breakthroughs and benefits to “morning God time,” beginning with his own journey as a professional night club musician and retail employee with an a-typical schedule. He then shares six different ways to receive “manna in the morning,” based on different personality types and interests.
Additional Resources
Abide in Christ Daily Devotional by Andrew Murray
Healing Study and Meditation Manual by Joe McIntyre
Transcript
You ever feel like occasionally that you might be as dumb as a fence post? But we don’t believe that. We’re believing for better things, right? But it’s interesting because I’ve been drawn for a week or two to a particular verse of scripture and I was praying about what to do tonight, since I finished up the commanded blessing series, and I felt like the Lord brought to mind a message that he wanted me to bring. But I hadn’t put it together with the scripture that he’d been talking to me about.
The scripture that I have been looking at is in Isaiah chapter 40. And, you know, a very, very popular verse from Isaiah 40 is they that wait upon the Lord, renew their strength and mount up with wings like eagles, they run and are not weary, and they walk and they do not faint. A number of years ago when all of a sudden I had my kidneys fail, I had a problem with my parathyroid gland, which I ended up in the hospital, and having surgery, and all of this for a man who’s boldly proclaiming divine healing.
And so I was a little bit blown out of the water as this happened. I’m kind of going, “Lord. I mean, we’ve seen lots of people healed and I’ve been healed before and how is all this happening?” And so I was a little bit questioning the Lord. I was saying, “Lord, I don’t understand, you know that you’ve told me that this is my thing I’m supposed to emphasize and the very first message I ever shared in a little small group was on divine healing.” God healed me of asthma, God healed me of other issues that I had.
And so I’m kind of questioning, “Lord, I don’t understand what’s going on.” Because how many know that inevitably in life, you’re gonna come to that place where you don’t know what’s going on? How many think that you’ll never get there? How many think you’re so far above that? Okay. So I’m kind of wrestling with this and I got invited to speak out at Sonrise Chapel in Everett. And so I’m out there and I’m waiting to be called up to speak. And Dan Hammer the pastor of Sonrise gets up and he reads this verse. And it says, “Why do you say Oh, Jacob and speak Oh, Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God.”
Well, that was talking to me. See? Lord, I don’t understand. Why have you not kept me from this sickness and disease? Then it goes on. It says, “The creator of the ends of the earth neither faints, nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.” And basically, it was saying the Lord will be faithful when it looks like he’s overlooked your claim. And for me, that was like water in the desert. And I began to stand up and began to rally myself in in the grace of God and fight the good fight of faith.
So more recently, our home was visited by an unwelcome visitor called the flu or a cold or something. I don’t know exactly what it was. A bug. And we tried to step on it, but it kept crawling away. But anyway, we had a couple of tough weeks and I was feeling very, very weary. And for the kind of things that I do, study and writing and that kind of stuff, when you’re tired, you can’t do it. Your mind’s just not alert. Your attention is challenged and that type of thing. So the Lord brought back to me this verse that he gives power to the weak and to those who have no might he increases strength.
Well, when I asked the Lord what to preach on tonight, he said, “Preach on manna in the morning,” and I knew what he meant because this as I’ll share with you, has some history with me. And Isaiah 40 goes on to say, “They that wait upon the Lord renew their strength, and mount up with wings like eagles, they run and they’re not weary and they walk and they don’t faint.” Well while we were in pre service prayer, Diana reads that verse. And Kirk says, you know, the Lord’s saying that he wants to strengthen the weak and encourage the discouraged and, you know, it was like a confirming witness of the Holy Spirit through two other people about this word.
So I’ve got good news for you. If you’re feeling weak, weary or discouraged, God is for you and wants to minister to you tonight. But not only tonight, he wants to minister to you daily. Manna In the Morning, the title of my message, is based on a little tract. Now, when I was a young believer, I had come out of a pretty hard lifestyle of drugs and alcohol and promiscuity and new age Goofiness and all kinds of stuff. And, you know, I was gloriously saved, filled with the Holy Spirit. And like so many I started off in the honeymoon glow period of my walk with the Lord, where you just kind of float. You know? But after a few months, you know, you have a day or two that’s not as alive and so you just sort of, you don’t know a lot about spiritual conflict. So you don’t understand that the enemy is trying to get you back.
And so I started struggling and falling, and being an avid reader, I would go down to the local Christian bookstore and peruse the books and buy another one on holiness or another one on the crucified life, or learning on the deeper meaning of sanctification. Trying to get a hold of enough truth to change my life. And for me, reading is an easy way to do things, so I read a lot. Well, I continued to struggle and so one day I was in the Christian bookstore and I was talking to the lady that was working there and she was an older lady, obviously walked with the Lord for many years. She said, “Well, I’d like to give you something.” That’s unusual in a Christian bookstore for them to give you something, you know, they are there to sell books, right. So she gives me this little tract. And it was called Manna In the Morning. And the premise of the book was that Israel in the wilderness had a supernatural manifestation of supernatural nourishment in the wilderness. But the only thing about it was you couldn’t store it up, because it rotted. So manna was only good the day that you picked it.
And the theme of the book was, God wants to give us manna in the morning, day by day. And so what this book started to tell me was that I needed to have a disciplined prayer life and I needed to spend time with God in the morning, if I wanted stability in my Christian life.
Now at that time, I’m working in a music store, which was not, you know, it wasn’t a family music store. It was a rock musician, music store. Because that was my background. And so, you know, it’s not exactly an atmosphere that facilitates your Christian walk. So I needed strength. I needed to be reinforced spiritually as I went to work and because you know, I had to get up in the morning and go to work, like many of you do. And so I needed to develop a consistent prayer life. It was a challenge for me. I had sort of a typical musician schedule, you know, go out and play in the club till one or two and then go home and sit around, listen to music for a while, and then get up at least by 11 or noon.
And so I’m having some pretty serious adjustments in my lifestyle. And I’ve gotten a job, because music wasn’t consistent enough pay or work. And so I’m working in this music store. Well, so I didn’t have like now I’m in full time ministry, and I have probably more liberty than the average person to spend time in prayer. You know, it’s part of my job, which is really amazing.
But this little booklet said, God wants to meet with you every morning and you need to spend time with him. And so I had to learn how to spend time with God in the morning. Now, many of you may have already developed your daily time of prayer. But I felt like the Lord wanted me to encourage you that this is the place where you get the manna that will sustain you during the hard times.
It’s an interesting thing in the book of Revelation, one of the churches, the Lord Jesus speaks to that church, and he says to them, “He that overcomes I will give him to eat of the hidden manna.” I don’t know if you know this. Some people don’t realize this. But there came a point where Moses took Aaron’s rod, that budded as a supernatural sign, and he took some of the manna and he put it in the Ark of the Covenant. So when the Bible speaks about hidden manna, it’s talking about manna from the Holy of Holies. Yeah!
Now here’s the thing. You have a daily invitation to the Holy of Holies. Father wants to give you hidden manna. And there are challenges that you have to face to develop your prayer life or to improve it in the mornings. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but let me just mention some things that might be possible ways, because in many years of pastoring I’ve learned that people are wired differently. Sometimes you’ll hear about somebody who does a certain thing in the morning, you’ll think maybe I should do that. Or you’ll think maybe that’s what I need to do. But here’s the thing, God knows who you are, and he’s got a way for you to meet with him.
Now, I want to share some suggestions for you that might be workable for you, and ways that it might improve your manna quotient. How many think the more manna the better? Right? We want to meet with the Lord. The first thing you need to think about is this is not the new law. Because condemnation, guilt and shame have never done anything to motivate Christians to better living. So, if you have a struggle with your prayer life, what you need to do is start saying, Lord, I’m here at the throne of grace and I need more grace to develop this. Because guilt and condemnation… “Yeah, that’s right. I just don’t pray enough. That’s just my problem. I just, you know… I just don’t have this… I just… Shut up. You’re not helping yourself. Condemning yourself doesn’t do you a bit of good. No matter how religious it feels, it doesn’t do any good. What does good is more grace.
Now, I just want to remind you of something that might be helpful at some other time. James, who was clearly a prophet, he is writing his letter to the saints at Jerusalem, and he says, “You adulterers and you adulteresses, don’t you know loving the world is to have sex with the world and you’re adulterers and adulteresses!” Talk about a royal slap in the prophetic face. But the next thing he says is just amazing, he says, “But He gives more grace.” So even in the style of an Old Testament prophet, that has this strong rebuke, His answer is more grace. What’s the answer for any faltering in your prayer life? More grace. Who’s the one who has all the grace you need? Your Father.
Now, for me, as I say it was difficult to form a consistent morning prayer life and when I was working full time, you know, you got to get up you got to get ready and you got to get off to work and you know, in general, you maybe don’t like to get up a lot earlier than you need to. But let me just mention some ways that different ones have approached their prayer time, that has been helpful for them.
The first point of my outline, is don’t allow this to be a religious duty. Because you sabotage your attempts when you’re doing it out of guilt. So I already said that. The second thing is sometimes for people, there’s certain personalities that using a devotional is really good. There are literally hundreds of devotionals that you can buy, online or at a Christian bookstore, that are good. Some of them have been around for decades, years, centuries and are still really helpful for people. And there’s a lot of modern ones that are really good. And actually there’s so many of them now that they’re focused on various needs. There are healing devotionals. There are mind renewal devotionals. Different kinds of devotionals that you can use, and what you’re doing is you’re taking a small thought and feeding on it for that day. And that can be really helpful. I know a lot of people have used them. I did for years.
I’m not necessarily recommending this, but Andrew Murray had a devotional on abiding in the Lord. I think it was called Abide In Christ. I think it was a 30 day devotional. Well, for me at a certain time in my life, that was really helpful. And I needed to get that one truth really, really alive inside of me. So you could try using a devotional. If you struggle with your devotional life, you could try using a formatted devotional on a particular theme that you need to grow in.
The second thing that some people use is a Bible reading plan. Many of our study Bibles, our more recent study Bibles like the Spirit Filled Life Bible. As I recall that has a devotional in it, a reading plan actually, that you can read through the Bible in a year or something like that. Pam used to like to do that. She had a plan that she would read through the Bible in a year. Some people that’s not the most appealing. I probably tend more towards topical things rather than consistently reading through the Bible, although that’s always a good thing to do. But, you know, one of the things that we all need is a good overview of the story of the scriptures. So reading through the Bible, in a one year Bible reading plan, is a great thing to do. And, sometimes that really meets people. I know Pam would read certain things she shared with me that she’d read today and, and it was clear that she was getting some food out of that time with the Lord. So those can be helpful.
Another thing that is really helpful is taking… you see there’s a promise or a declaration about God from God for every conceivable human experience. Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever opened the Bible up to Psalm someday and it sounded like David had just walk through what you’ve been through. I get a kick out of David. My enemies have overwhelmed me and you have abandoned me and there’s nothing good in my life! And I just want to praise You! Thank You! Worship You! Yeah! He does a total about face by the end of the song. Here’s the thing. Sometimes you feel like he’s describing, but then you see how it resolves. You see?
You see, because God has the word done in such a way that it can meet us wherever we are in whatever circumstance or situation or challenge and can speak into our situation. It’s one thing to think, “God is perfect, He never changes.” But it’s nice to know there’s humans… I mean, here’s the thing, you’ve got David writing all these psalms and they describe the ups and downs of his life. And yet in the New Testament, it says David is a man after God’s own heart. So, what I draw from that is, God is more concerned about your desire for him, then your emotional state.
In other words, you might have a bad day. I know that’s probably next to impossible, but it could happen. But here’s the thing. God isn’t moved by your bad day. And if you really hang out with him, he can pull you out of your bad day. Now the devil fears, a strong devotional life because it brings stability into your walk with God. And that’s what we all want. And I think everybody wants a good prayer life, a good devotional life, but sometimes we just aren’t quite sure how to get it.
What I’m wanting to just exhort you tonight is that God has grace for you to get fresh manna from him. A verse or two. For example, let’s say you’re listening to, Oh, I don’t, know a brilliant Sunday night message. You hear a scripture and the Holy Spirit just illuminates it to you. And you think that’s the answer to my situation. Now, what if… let me give you an example of spiritual conflict. Many years ago I was in a meeting in downtown Seattle. I’d heard this guy on radio, and I went down to hear him. And somebody asked him, in the question and answer after the afternoon session, somebody asked him, well, what about Paul’s thorn in the flesh, because he was teaching on healing and stuff. I had always heard hat Paul was sick and God didn’t heal him. And so you know, God might want you to keep your sickness so you can learn humility. There’s a really demonic doctrine.
Somebody asks this and he says, Well, he says, you know, it was really a messenger of Satan. It was being. It wasn’t a disease and Jesus told him that his grace was sufficient for him and his power is perfected in weakness, and so he was encouraging him to draw upon the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and overcome the problem. Or something like that. Lights went on for me. I went, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen that.” But it’s right there in the Word. So I got home. And guess what? My mind went, “Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but.” You ever have your mind do a yeah but?
Well, I went and got my Bible. And I said, “Lord, when this brother shared, I saw it like I’d never seen it before. And now I’m not… I just don’t… I’m not quite sure about it. So I need you to show this to me.” So I got out the passage, and I looked at the passage and I said, “Holy Spirit, I need you to help me here. I know I got a revelation of this, but now my mind is wandering.” And so I just spend a little time with the Lord, and the Lord began to illuminate to me the verses that I’d heard and I’ve never looked back.
You can’t sell me Paul’s thorn. I’m not in the market for Paul’s thorn. I know what it isn’t, and it wasn’t sickness. It was an angel. It was a messenger of Satan. It was a spiritual assignment against him. It wasn’t… I’m sorry, I’m just tempted to preach. I’ll just say this. Paul said, Jesus told him My grace is sufficient for you. My power, My dunamis, My supernatural enablement is enough, actually more than enough. And then he says, I rejoice in my weaknesses, because when I am weak, then I am strong and the dunamis of Christ pitches its tent over me. How many think if the dunamis of Christ pitched its tent over you, you wouldn’t rise up above whatever any angel of Satan was trying to do?
All right, but my my first point I wanted to make is that you can hear something that helps you, but then you need to take it and pray over it and meditate on it, so the spirit has a chance to write it more firmly in your heart and on your mind, so that your understanding is no longer wrestling with it. Because what happens when the anointing comes on the message that you’re hearing and the anointing speaks into your heart and you get illuminated and you get light that floods your heart, the seed has been planted. But Jesus said Satan comes immediately to steal the word that is sown.
So you have to protect the seed that’s sown. And one of the ways you can do that is if a verse has come alive to you, for about a week, spend ten minutes just thinking about that word asking the Lord to give you light on it, and sow it deeply into your heart and to get it into your mind. In Matthew’s version of the parable of the sower, it says the sower sows the Word. And to those who hear the word and don’t understand it, Satan comes and steals it. Sometimes people will go to a conference and they’re floating for days. But they never take the time to study, meditate, think on the word, and in a month, the word’s gone. We want to be smarter than that, don’t we?
It’s good to read the Word. And God can minister to you as you read the word, but sometimes it’s more nutritious to just take a verse. I remember when I first started reading E.W. Kenyon. He majored on the new creation. And I had never really heard any good teaching on the new creation. And I just thought I had two natures and I was sure that the old man was stronger than the new man. And, you know, it was kind of spiritual schizophrenia. I didn’t know who I was from one day to the next. One day I was the old man, the other day, the next day, I was the new man. Well, when I read Kenyon, and actually Kenyon was just teaching what Paul said. 2 Corinthians 5:7, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away behold, all things have become new.
So I wrote that out in a notebook and I would just think about that and say it. I would just think, “I am a new creation. I have been created in Christ. Old things have passed away.” Now my mind said, “Well, no, they haven’t. You still have them.” And I said, “Yeah, Lord, that’s right. They haven’t.” You know, it’s a funny thing when you tell God His word isn’t true, He hardly ever answers. You ever noticed that? “Lord, your word isn’t true.” “Talk to talk to me later.”
And then finally I understood a little more. And I said, “Lord, Your Word is true, but I don’t know how to walk in it.” And then it was like from heaven. There was this sound. “Ah, your understanding now.” You see, the word is true, whether you knew what to do with it, or whether you’re walking in it or whether it’s real to you or not, it’s still true. In other words, the saying that went around some years ago, “God said it. I believe it, that settles it.” But here’s the truth. God said it. That settles it whether you believe it or not. You might as well just believe it because it’s true anyway.
But here’s the thing. Focusing on a verse or two, especially in the area of your need. For example, if you’re seeking God for healing. Well, First Peter 2:24. Who who Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we having died to sin might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. Well, you could feed on that. We have a whole devotional made up of healing Scriptures that you can actually just continue to feed on. What Pam and I are doing is we’re declaring one of them out loud each day. I declare a bunch of them every day. That’s the area where I’m wanting to build faith.
Thinking, meditating on the Word. There was a great book that came out some years ago. I don’t know if it’s even still in print. But it was called Alone With God. It’s a great book on Bible meditation, but he just talks about how when you wait on the Lord, He illuminates. He can get more out of one verse than you can get out of a whole chapter when it’s illuminated by the Spirit.
Our culture thinks knowledge is power. But really, it’s intimacy that’s power. It’s good to have knowledge and we should grow in the knowledge of the word. What I’ve discovered over the years is one word… I’ll give you an example. I felt like the Lord wanted me to meditate because I started after some years of practicing this, I would say, “Where should I meditate, Lord?” And so He said, “Second Peter chapter one.” And it starts out, you know, let me read it to you. “Simon Peter, a bondservant, and apostle of Jesus Christ.” And so I thought, “Well, there’s nothing in that. Okay. Moving right along.” And the Lord said, “Go back.” And I said, “But Lord, it’s just an introductory phrase, you know.” Simon Peter, a bond servant, and apostle. And I said, “Well, what’s in that, Lord?” And the Lord said, “Well, what did he put as the more important office?” He identified himself firstly, as a bondservant. You know, he didn’t have on his business card, Hi, I’m Peter the Apostle.
Here’s a man who horribly failed God and Jesus restored him and used him to preach on the day of Pentecost, and he had a deep awareness of grace. And this comes out, Simon Peter, a bond slave is the actual better translation. A bond slave in their day, was someone who had been a slave and had had the opportunity to leave slavery, but had chosen to continue as a slave. Now think about that.
So anyway, I started looking at that, I thought, “My gosh.” Peter saw himself primarily as the bond slave of Jesus. We have a lot of flurry about fivefold ministry today and a lot of people calling themselves apostles and I don’t have a problem with that. But the deal is, how many of you know Hi, here’s my here’s my card, Joe McIntyre, bond slave of the Lord?” Probably somebody will do it, but but here’s my point.
A word from the Lord, a sentence in the scripture, illuminated by the Spirit. See, I fed on that for days. I just started thinking about that. A bond servant of Jesus Christ. This is the example of the great Apostle Peter. He saw himself firstly, as the bond slave of Jesus. That’s powerful.
So just one word can really do something for us. It can become hidden manna to us. See, for me that verse was hidden manna. I didn’t think there was anything in it. But the spirit had something hidden in it, which he could feed me from.
The other area, and this is particularly a good word for those who have to get up and go to work in the morning and you don’t have a lot of time you can spend with the Lord. And that is declaring the word. I probably shared this numerous times, but I got a little booklet that suggested taking all this New Testament scriptures that say in Christ, in Him, in whom, by Christ, through Christ, all of these phrases tied to the Lord and writing them out in a notebook. And so I did that. I wrote them all out, you know, went through Paul’s letters and Peter and went through and wrote out all these verses. The author said, well start saying these things to the Lord.
So I had a little room I would go into to pray and I would go in there, and I started saying, “Thank you today, Lord, I’m a new creature in Christ. Thank you that my sins are washed away. Thank you that I’m born of the Spirit of God. Thank You that I’m your workmanship created in Christ Jesus.” And I would just kind of declare these scriptures. I was doing this for a couple of weeks and you know, I wasn’t aware of anything dramatic, really taking place. I mean, it’s like, oh, yeah, so I’m doing this, you know, it’s kind of like… it didn’t seem to be making a dramatic effect.
But then one morning, this was probably two or three weeks into the process. I’m going, “Father, thank You today that I’m a new creation. I thank you that I’m your workmanship. I’m born of your spirit. I’m more than a conqueror through you because you love me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. No weapon formed against me can prosper. I’m the righteousness of God in Christ.” And pretty soon I’ve got this flow going. And I actually said to the Lord, “Who was that?” And the Lord said, “That was the person you’ve been since you were born again, but you just discovered him.” And how many know that’s true of you as well?
But for me, when I didn’t have a lot of time, I would just declare the word. Why? Well, declaring the word builds your faith, because faith comes by hearing the Word of God. So it builds your faith. It renews your mind. Now, here’s the thing that was really interesting, I would go to work, and usually, my mind was kind of barraged with all these negative thoughts and ideas that would come to me and there was kind of like a constant flood of stuff. And after I had been doing this for a while, the devil said, “You know, it’s not doing you any good.” And I said, “Yeah, you’re right.” So I stopped for a while. Well, all of a sudden, I’m going about my day, and I’m having thoughts that I haven’t had for weeks. You see, what it was doing was guarding my thought life. But it wasn’t a dramatic thing. It was a subtle thing.
It’s like somebody said, you know, Christians are often looking for the miraculous and overlooking the supernatural.
See, my mind was being renewed and certain trains of thought were being stopped; fears, insecurities, worries. They were stopping, but because it wasn’t a dramatic encounter with God, I didn’t even notice it till I stopped declaring. And then I went right back to declaring because I realized it really was making a difference. It was really helping me control my mind.
Now, the other thing declaring the Word does is it creates a vision of hope. See, when you declare the word of God, you’re saying this is where I’m headed. No matter where you are presently, when you declare the word of God, There’s a vision that set before you of what God’s grace will bring you into. Proverbs says, without a prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. Somebody once said, If you’re not going forward, guess what direction you’re going. You see?
We need a vision. The thoughts that God has toward you are thoughts of good and not for evil, to give you a future, and a hope. So the other thing it does is it helps guard your heart. You see? The book of Proverbs says and this is the verse I’ve been meditating on for a couple of weeks. My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your eyes, keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh.
I’ll tell you what happened to me the other day. I have that healing devotional which I’ve been using for years. The first scripture in it is that verse from Proverbs four. And, you know, I can obviously quote it from memory because I’m so familiar with it. But here’s the thing. I opened that up in my little New Testament, which I often use in the morning, and I opened that verse, and I look at that verse, and it says, My son. Now it’s like bondservant. I can’t get past my son. And then I have this radical thought, Jesus in the synagogue, what would he think when he heard that? He would think Father God was speaking to him as his son. And he’s the firstborn of many brethren.
So I put myself like Jesus and I just said, “I’m your son, father. And I’m giving attention to your word.” And incline your ear. Do you know what that means? It means listen and do. It’s an interesting Hebrew word. It doesn’t just mean hear. It means listen and do. That phrase is used twelve times in the Old Testament. And I think eight of them are in prayers to God, where God’s people say, “Father incline your ear.”
It doesn’t just mean hear. Right? Hear and do. God wants you to hear and do His Word. And as you hear it, faith comes and faith will empower the Word so that it’s empowering grace in you, so that you can do it. And there’s always a way to do the word. You don’t have to do some crazy radical, jump off a cliff type of a thing. All you need to do… sometimes the best thing you can do to incline your ear is just to say, “Father, I thank you for the truth of your word.” Do something to respond to the truth. Say, “Lord, I want to praise you that you’re working in me.”
Another verse I keep quoting, and it just kind of comes out of me. Philippians 1:6. It is God who has begun a good work in you which he will complete until the day of Christ. God has begun a good work in you. You’re important to God, He loves you. And if you let him, if you’ll trust Him, if you rely on Him, He will bring you into conformity with the image of His Son, because he’s the only one who can do that. You can’t. And that’s really good news, because it takes the pressure off of you. “Lord, I’m really trying to conform myself to the image of Christ. It’s just, it’s just not easy, Lord!” Duh! How about impossible? But not for Him. See?
And then Philippians 2:13, It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. See what we’re doing to get manna in the morning, is we’re ceasing from our works, and we’re expectantly coming to him for fresh manna. Amen.
