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Mornings With Jesus
Mornings With Jesus
The Power of Letting Go and Letting God | Joshua Scott Zeitz
What's that one thing you're keeping back from God? That area you carefully protect, that habit you justify, that comfort you return to when life gets difficult? Today's powerful reflection on Psalm 139:23-24 tackles the courage required to pray, "Search me thoroughly, O God, and know my heart."
There's a transformative truth at work in our spiritual lives: whatever we withhold from God inevitably becomes a mess, while whatever we surrender becomes blessed. King David exemplifies this principle perfectly. Despite his spectacular moral failures—adultery with Bathsheba and arranging her husband's murder—David's willingness to return to God with complete transparency is why he remained "a man after God's own heart." His example challenges us to examine what we might be holding back.
In a deeply personal moment, I share my own battle with pornography, a struggle that persisted even after my spiritual transformation and marriage. Like many, I created exceptions and justifications, using this sin as a crutch when facing life's difficulties. Freedom only came when I finally exposed it fully to God's light, rediscovered my identity in Christ, and claimed the spiritual authority available to every believer. Your struggle may be different, but the pathway to freedom remains the same: complete surrender. Whatever God reveals, He wants to heal. Will you let Him search your heart today? Your breakthrough might be just one prayer away.
Hello and welcome to Mornings with Jesus, your daily dose of encouragement. I am your host, Joshua Scott Zeitz. Today is day three of Sin Week and today's in Scripture is Psalm 139, 23, and 24. The Amplified Version reads Search me thoroughly, O God, and know my heart, Test me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Have you ever had a hard time letting go of anything? Something my pastor says is this whatever we hold back from God will be a mess, but whatever we give to him will be blessed by us willingly allowing him access into the hidden parts of our lives. It will not only keep the enemy at bay, protecting us from his fiery darts, but it will also bolster a more vibrant and intimate walk with the Lord. We need only look at the life of David to see this at work. David, when he was a young man, spent much time basking in the presence of God. When we read Psalm 23, it gives us a clear picture of his intimate walk with the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want he leads me beside clear waters. He restores my soul Later in life. Yes, David was a man of war and he even committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. But he repented. He returned to God with all his heart and God called David a man after his own heart.
Speaker 0:Today, I want to encourage you. Perhaps there is an area that you have been keeping back from God. Maybe it's something that you are sin to mental about. You keep it back from God, from others, and reserve it for yourself. Only when bad feelings come or when bad circumstances arise, you pull it out and use it to console and comfort yourself. Listen, be encouraged. You are not alone. We all struggle with this or that. The enemy will come along and he will whisper his lies to you, telling you that your thing is special and that it cannot be thwarted. But don't listen to him. We have learned already that he is the father of lies. Instead, turn that thing over to God, whatever it is.
Speaker 0:For me, for years, it was pornography. Even after being radically transformed in a gel cell, even after preaching the word of God, even after marrying the most beautiful and amazing woman on the planet, I still had sin to mental feelings toward this one sin. I used it as a crutch, as a scapegoat for the problems of life, and yet it was eating me up on the inside. I didn't want to do it, but no matter how hard I tried, I kept running back to it and I used every excuse in the book to justify my behavior, to tell myself that it was okay, that I was the exception. But it just wasn't true. In reality, it was stealing my joy, it was sapping my strength and it was destroying my witness for Jesus. It wasn't until I finally gave it over to God, exposing it for what it really was sin, that I truly got victory over it.
Speaker 0:I had to delve into the Word of God like never before, Find out who I was in Christ, Find out that I wasn't that old, sinful person anymore, that I had the power to overcome anything that come against me in the name of Jesus and with the sword of the spirit, the word of God. So what is it that's keeping you back from being a force to be reckoned with in the kingdom of God? What is it that keeps you bound to fear or worry or anxious thoughts? I encourage you today to be like David and cry out to God, Search me and know me, and then get ready, but remember whatever God reveals he wants to heal. So let him, Until next time, remember what you make happen for others, God will make happen for you.
