Today’s Reading:
2 Timothy 1
2 Timothy 2
2 Timothy 3
He gave us resurrection life and drew us to himself by his holy calling on our lives. And it wasn’t because of any good we have done, but by his divine pleasure and marvelous grace that confirmed our union with the anointed Jesus, even before time began! This truth is now being unveiled by the revelation of the anointed Jesus, our life-giver, who has dismantled death, obliterating all its effects on our lives, and has manifested his immortal life in us by the gospel.
2 Timothy 1:9-10 TPT
I heard the Spirit of the Living God say,
Trust in Me. You’ll find I pulled it off perfectly. Trust in Me to fulfill your heart’s desires. Trust in Me to meet your needs. Trust in Me to be sufficiency in the places of your lack, longing and need. I will provide, and joy in abundant supply is your portion. Days of celebration and rejoicing are your portion. Just as you trust in Me reflexively for every breath you take, trust Me in the things you can’t yet see, touch or taste. Trust that I Am at work, drawing the pieces together, aligning the timing and aligning your heart, working on your character and chiseling out and refining the parts that don’t belong.
In a palace you find many kinds of containers and tableware for many different uses. Some are beautifully inlaid with gold or silver, but some are made of wood or earthenware; some of them are used for banquets and special occasions, and some for everyday use. But you, Timothy, must not see your life and ministry this way. Your life and ministry must not be disgraced, for you are to be a pure container of Christ and dedicated to the honorable purposes of your Master, prepared for every good work that he gives you to do.
2 Timothy 2:20-21 TPT
The refining, the chiseling, the chipping away is a lifelong process. So submit to it. Relax in it. I Am making you more beautiful, more defined, more reflective of Me with each imperfection that I chip away. Yield to the process. Yield to My hands. I will do this refining work in the secluded place, in the private place. It doesn’t have to be a public thing. But you can invite people into an awareness of the process. You can invite people even to witness the process. This is accountability. This is discipleship. This is submission. It’s all to prepare you, to strengthen you, to perfect you to be the person I created you to be.
It’s good and right for Me to chip away at those places that don’t serve your purpose, that don’t feed your soul and bring soul health, at those mindsets that draw you into lack, despair and bad habits. This is a life of submission and discipline. And that is the one that yields the most fruit. The vinedresser prunes to maximize healthy growth for healthy fruit. This is a time of getting rid of what is not serving the production of good fruit. This is a time of smoothing rough places and bringing out, enhancing the definition of who you truly are. I Am redefining you, and as I refine you the picture will emerge for you and everyone who sees you. A clearer, defined, more solid picture will emerge and will be portrayed by you.
God has transmitted his very substance into every Scripture, for it is God-breathed. It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you the strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness. Then you will be God’s servant, fully mature and perfectly prepared to fulfill any assignment God gives you.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 TPT
Submit to the process. Yield to the process. It is continual though some seasons feel like heavier, more intense refining periods than others. All of this is so you can be who I created you to be and so you have the space and capacity to receive what I Am bringing into your hands. The refining is for the promise.
How to Respond
- Yield to the Lord’s refining work in your life.
- Spend time in the Scriptures. They are one tool the Lord uses to refine and purify our hearts.
- Pray, Lord thank You for not being finished with me yet. Help me to live a lifestyle of continual submission to Your refining work with unrelenting trust that You are working on me to continue to make me into the person You designed and purposed me to be. Your refining of me is also preparing me to have the capacity to carry and live in the promises that You are bringing to fulfillment in my life.
- Declare, I know with all of my heart and all of my soul that not one word of all the good words which the Lord my God spoke concerning me has failed; all have been fulfilled for me, not one of them has failed. – adapted from Joshua 23:14
- Decree, I yield to trustworthy hands of the Master Sculptor who is chipping away at the excess and bringing greater definition to the person He created me to be. I trust that the Lord is refining me for purpose. He is ensuring that I have the capacity to carry the promises He is bringing to fulfillment and the assignments that He has planned in advance for me.
For more encouragement from The Glory & the New Wine, check out the post from this day in years past:
2024:
2023:
2022:
