Christians are full of possibilities.

     When I graduated high school I wasn't the scholar or anything close to it.  I went to trade school but was bored with that.  Into the Army I went to two different schools before shipping overseas where I lived for 2 1/2 years.  Back home I went to college and obtained my associates, bachelors and then two masters degrees.  I have another masters almost completed.  On the way to my degrees I wrote two books and a third is on the way.  God has taken me through 18 different vocations over the years and utilized my education, skills and desires.  However, for most of those years I was obsessed with the wrong motive.  But then most people find themselves there as well.  I wanted to prove myself to my peers, my family, and the world that I was good enough.  That never happened for the most part.  What emerged was the knowledge that I was good enough for God.  That was all I ever needed to know.  Yet, chasing after the former, I spent many years chasing anything other than the glory of God.  Perhaps you can resonate with my story.  Maybe you and I are not so different and perhaps we seek the same thing.  When we come to the end of our ways, God's possibilities are always waiting for us. 
     Listening to mankind is pointless unless they are speaking on behalf of God.  Looking around us, there are many groups and individuals as well as society that have their own set of possibilities.  With this the intention is to take Christians off the God agenda and subjugate us to the worlds agenda.  In that position it's impossible to please God.  Why?  Because we are not focused on what God wants.  We are not sold on the idea that God has a perfect plan and we are part of it.  So, we go off to work, school or attend to the kids and grandparents.  We plan our lives as if we are projecting God's will for us and all the while know that it's our agenda we are living.  Why is that?  Do we really believe that as Christians we can do life without Jesus?  Have we veered so far from the truth that our self deception looks like the will of God to ourselves?  The cares of the world are there to ensnare us rather than set us free.  Held back to the way of our fathers (and mothers) and not free to follow Jesus only hinders our ability to bring the Gospel to others.  Our sinful desires (drag or compel us) to seek for ourselves.  Repentance is then relegated to Sunday and Wednesday nights with empty promises to do better.  We can't do better.  None of us can when we are in our "self" mode.
     When we are before Jesus contemplating giving our life up for his, we should be conscious of the real meaning of that act.  We are to die to self and receive Jesus to live in place of self.  That doesn't mean we get to choose this or that and keep the rest.  What it means is a total change of our life.  One moment we are of the world and the next moment we are in Christ and in the world but not of the world.  Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to indwell in us.  If we are consigned to living for self there is no room for the Holy Spirit to indwell in any of us.  To many cooks in the kitchen.  When we are "partial" Christians and "partially" filled with the Holy Spirit, we are "not" filled with God and we curtail the possibilities God has for us.  His possibilities are for us to live out.  When we are a surrendered people God can work the miraculous.