Last week, you were challenged to get your shovel and don’t abort the mission. You learned to keep digging, remain steadfast, and trust God even when you could not see what was beneath the surface. But as you enter this new series, remember: you can have the shovel in your hand and still need the Holy Spirit to show you where to dig.
Zechariah 4:6 reminds you, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” So keep your shovel but surrender your direction. Don’t abort the mission, but don’t become so determined to do it your way that you stand in God’s way. This week, the question becomes: Are you walking in liberty, or are you still holding on to bondage while asking the Holy Spirit to have His way?
This devotional series is an invitation to examine whether you are truly walking in the liberty of the Holy Spirit or simply talking about freedom while still holding on to bondage. Through 2 Corinthians 3:1–18, you will be challenged to surrender control, allow God to rewrite what has been placed on your heart, remove the veil from your vision, embrace the liberty of the Spirit, and allow the Holy Spirit to transform you from glory to glory. The question throughout this journey is simple but powerful: Are you really asking the Holy Spirit to have His way, or are you still standing in His way?
Hello sunshine! Are you in liberty or are you in bondage? Holy Spirit, have your way, but am I willing to move out of the way?
2 Corinthians 3:16-16 ~ “but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit.”
There is a prayer many believers have prayed countless times: “Holy Spirit, have your way.” We say it in worship. We say it before preaching. We say it when we need directions. We say it when we are desperate for change. We ask the Holy Spirit to move in our homes, our churches, our families, our ministries, our relationships, our finances, and our circumstances. But this series asks a deeper and perhaps more uncomfortable question: what happens when we ask the Holy Spirit to have his way, but we refuse to move out of his way?
What if the thing standing between you and the liberty you have been praying for is not always the enemy? What if sometimes it is your own need to control the outcome? Your own fear of change? Your own attachment to what is familiar? Your own traditions? Your own expectations? Your own refusal to release something God has already told you to let go?
We often ask God to move what is around us when the Holy Spirit is trying to move something within us. In 2 Corinthians 3:1–18, Paul gives us a powerful picture of what happens when our lives move from the letter to the spirit, from the veil to revelation, from bondage to liberty, and ultimately from glory to glory. Paul explains that under the new covenant, God is doing something deeper than writing commandments upon tablets of stone. Through the Holy Spirit, He is writing his truth upon the human heart. This means God is not merely interested in changing what you do. He wants to transform who you are.
You can know scripture and still resist transformation. You can attend church and remain emotionally bound. You can serve in ministry while carrying unforgiveness. You can worship while being controlled by fear. You can pray for freedom while refusing to release the very thing that keeps you imprisoned. You can shout, “Holy Spirit, have your way!” While quietly saying, “but don’t change this. Don’t touch that. Don’t ask me to release them. Don’t redirect my plans. Don’t make me uncomfortable.” That is the tension this series confronts. Liberty requires surrender 2 Corinthians 3:17 declares: “now the Lord is that spirit: and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
We love the word liberty, but sometimes we overlook the word Lord. If he is Lord, he has authority. If he is Lord, he has permission to correct you. If he is Lord, he can redirect you. If he is Lord, he can interrupt your plans. If he is Lord, he can tell you to release what you wanted to keep. If he is Lord, he can tell you to walk away from what you thought you needed. If he is Lord, he can require forgiveness when you would rather remain offended. If he is Lord, he can challenge the way you think, respond, speak, love, serve, and live.
We cannot desire the liberty of the spirit while rejecting the Lordship of the spirit. And sometimes that is where bondage hides. Bondage is not always obvious. Not every chain makes noise. Sometimes bondage looks like needing everyone’s approval before you obey God. Sometimes it looks like constantly replaying what someone did to you. Sometimes it looks like fear of starting again. Sometimes it looks like remaining connected to something simply because it is familiar. Sometimes it looks like refusing to forgive. Sometimes it looks like controlling every detail because you are afraid of what will happen if you surrender. And sometimes bondage looks spiritual. You can become so attached to how God moved before that you miss how he is moving now. You can become so committed to an old season that you resist the new one. You can become so comfortable with yesterday’s instructions that you fail to hear what the spirit is saying today. That is why Paul speaks about the veil.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:16, “nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.” Notice that the veil is removed when there is a turning toward the Lord. Sometimes breakthroughs begin with a turn. You turn away from pride and toward humility. You turn away from control and toward surrender. You turn away from fear and toward faith. You turn away from bitterness and toward forgiveness. You turn away from people’s expectations and toward God’s instructions. You turn away from your own understanding and say, “Holy Spirit, show me what I cannot see.”
The veil coming off does not mean everything around you immediately change in you. Sometimes the first evidence of liberty is that you begin seeing differently. You recognize patterns you previously excused. You recognize relationships you previously idolized. You recognize fears you previously called wisdom. You recognize control you previously called responsibility. You recognize bondage you previously called normal. And once the Holy Spirit reveals it, you have a decision to make: will you surrender it, or will you cover it back up?
The spirit gives life Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:6, “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” The Holy Spirit did not come merely to make you emotional. He came to make you alive. He brings life to dead places. Life to your prayer life. Life to your thinking. Life to your faith. Life to your purpose. Life to places disappointment caused you to bury. Life to dreams fear convinced you to abandon. Life to parts of your heart you shut down because you did not want to be hurt again. This is why liberty is so important. Bondage keeps you surviving in places where the Holy Spirit is calling you to live again. God did not bring you this far simply to teach you how to function while chained. Jesus did not purchase your freedom so you could decorate your prison and become comfortable inside it. There is more.
From liberty to transformation. The chapter does not end with liberty. It ends with transformation. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says: “but we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.” That means liberty has a destination, transformation. God frees you so he can transform you.
He removes the veil so you can see him. You see him so you can become more like him. And as you become more like him, you move from glory to glory. This is not a one-time emotional experience. It is a continuing process of surrender. There will always be another place where the Holy Spirit says, “give me that too.” Another layer. Another mindset. Another fear. Another expectation. Another habit. Another wound. Another level of control. Another version of yourself that cannot accompany you where God is taking you. And every time you surrender, you make room for transformation.
So, throughout these five days, don’t merely ask, “what is God going to do for me?” Ask: “Holy Spirit, what are you trying to do in me?” “Where am I still bound?” “What am I afraid to surrender?” “What veil needs to come off?” “Where have I mistaken familiarity for freedom?” “Am I truly following the Holy Spirit, or am i asking him to follow the plans i have already made?” “Am I asking him to have his way while insisting on keeping mine?” And perhaps the most important question:
“Holy Spirit, am I in your way?” If his answer reveals something uncomfortable, don’t run. Surrender. Because conviction is not rejection. Revelation is an invitation. When the Holy Spirit shows you what is keeping you bound, He is also showing you where he wants to bring liberty. Over these five days, we are going to move. We are moving from self-sufficiency to God-sufficiency. From ink on pages to truth written upon our hearts. From veiled vision to spiritual clarity. From control to surrender. From bondage to liberty. From liberty to transformation. And ultimately, from glory to glory.
So, before beginning day one, pray this simple prayer from your heart with me; “Holy Spirit, have your way. But this time, don’t just move around me, move in me. Show me every place where I have been standing in your way. Remove the veil. Break the bondage. Change my heart. Correct my thinking. Interrupt my plans if necessary. Teach me how to surrender completely. I don’t want to simply experience your presence; I want to submit to your Lordship. I am ready for liberty. I am ready for transformation. I am ready to move out of the way. Holy Spirit, have your way. In Jesus Name, Amen.”
Tagline: Sometimes you are waiting for the Holy Spirit to move, while the Holy Spirit is waiting for you to move, out of the way.
Let’s Begin Day 1:
Good Morning Sunshine! You Keep Asking Him To Have His Way While You Keep Insisting On Having Your Way! Move Out Of The Way!
2 Corinthians 3:4–6 (KJV) ~ “And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church about the difference between depending on human ability and depending on God through the new covenant in Christ. Some had questioned Paul’s qualifications, but Paul makes it clear that his confidence and ability to minister did not come from himself. He declares, “our sufficiency is of God.” God was the source of his strength, wisdom, and effectiveness.
When Paul says, “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” he is contrasting the old covenant law, which revealed sin but could not transform the heart, with the new covenant, where the Holy Spirit works within the believer and brings life and transformation. Paul is reminding you that you cannot accomplish spiritual transformation through your own strength. You must depend upon the Holy Spirit.
This connects directly to today’s message, when you ask the Holy Spirit to have His way, you must be willing to surrender your need to control how He moves. Your sufficiency is not in you; it is in God. You have probably prayed the words “Holy Spirit, have Your way” more times than you can count. You have said them during worship, whispered them in prayer, spoken them before making decisions, and cried them when you did not know what else to do. You have asked the Holy Spirit to move in your life, your family, your relationships, your ministry, your career, your finances, and your future. But today, before you ask Him to have His way again, you need to ask yourself a deeper question: Are you really willing to let Him have His way, or are you asking Him to bless the way you have already chosen?
There is a difference between inviting the Holy Spirit into your plans and surrendering your plans to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes you have already decided what you want, how you want it, when you want it, and even who you want God to use to bring it to pass. Then, after you have constructed the entire plan, you ask the Holy Spirit to have His way. But what happens when His way looks nothing like yours? What happens when He changes the direction, delays the answer, closes the door, removes someone, tells you to wait, or leads you somewhere you never intended to go? Will you still say, “Holy Spirit, have Your way,” when His way interrupts yours?
Paul reminds you in 2 Corinthians 3 that your sufficiency is not in yourself; your sufficiency is of God. That truth takes the pressure off you when you truly receive it. You do not have to know everything. You do not have to fix everything. You do not have to carry everything. You do not have to make everything happen. You do not have to have every answer before you take the next step. God never asked you to become your own source. He asked you to trust the One who is your Source.
Yet when you have spent years being responsible, dependable, strong, and accustomed to making things happen, surrender can become difficult. You can become so used to carrying things that you do not realize when carrying has turned into controlling. You start believing that if you do not manage every detail, everything will fall apart. You pray about something and then immediately begin figuring out how you are going to make it happen. You give something to God in prayer and pick it back up before you finish saying Amen. You tell the Holy Spirit to lead you, but when He starts leading you somewhere unfamiliar, you reach for the wheel again.
This is where you must recognize that bondage does not always look like chains. Sometimes bondage looks like control. It can look like your inability to release an outcome. It can look like your need to know every detail before you obey. It can look like being unable to rest because you believe everything depends on you. It can look like constantly trying to manipulate circumstances because you are afraid that if you stop working, pushing, calling, explaining, planning, or fixing, nothing will happen. You may call it being responsible, but the Holy Spirit may be showing you that somewhere along the way, responsibility became an inability to surrender.
You must remember what Paul says: “Our sufficiency is of God.” Your confidence does not have to come from knowing what happens next. Your confidence comes from knowing Who is already there. You do not have to understand the entire process to trust the God who ordered your steps. You do not have to see the complete road to follow the One who promised to direct your path. The Holy Spirit is not asking you to figure everything out; He is asking you to become sensitive enough to hear Him and surrendered enough to follow Him.
Paul also tells you that “the Spirit giveth life.” That is important because there may be areas of your life that have become exhausted because you have been trying to breathe life into them yourself. You have pushed, forced, worked, worried, strategized, and struggled, and now you are tired. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is saying to you today, “Move out of the way and let Me breathe.” There are things that your strength cannot resurrect. There are doors your connections cannot open. There are hearts your explanations cannot change. There are situations where your intelligence cannot solve. There are battles your hands were never designed to fight. Some things require the breath, power, wisdom, and movement of the Holy Spirit.
Moving out of the way does not mean that you stop praying, preparing, working, or using wisdom. It means you stop trying to occupy God’s position. You do what He tells you to do and trust Him with what only He can do. You prepare, but you do not manipulate. You work, but you do not worship your own effort. You plan, but you leave room for God to interrupt the plan. You pray, but you also listen. You move when He says move, and you become still when He says be still. That is not weakness. That is surrender.
You also have to be careful that fear does not disguise itself as wisdom. Sometimes you say you are “just being careful” when you are actually afraid to release control. Sometimes you say you are “waiting for confirmation” when God has already spoken and you are waiting for Him to say something you prefer. Sometimes you keep asking for another sign because the first instruction requires a level of surrender you have not yet been willing to give. At some point, liberty requires you to trust God enough to move when He says move and release when He says release.
This is why today’s question is bigger than whether you believe in the Holy Spirit. The question is whether you are willing to yield to the Holy Spirit. You can believe He leads and still refuse His direction. You can believe He speaks and ignore what He says. You can believe He brings liberty and remain attached to bondage because bondage feels familiar. You can invite Him into the room and still occupy every available space with your own agenda.
Today, you are being invited to make room. Make room for the Holy Spirit to change your mind. Make room for Him to redirect your steps. Make room for Him to answer differently than you expected. Make room for Him to remove what you thought you needed. Make room for Him to give you something you never considered. Make room for Him to tell you no when you wanted yes, wait when you wanted now, move when you wanted to stay, or stay when you wanted to leave. If you truly want Him to have His way, then His way has to be allowed to become greater than your preference.
Your liberty may begin when you finally release your need to control the outcome. You may discover that the thing exhausting you is the very thing God never asked you to carry. You may discover that peace was waiting on the other side of surrender. You may discover that the Holy Spirit has not been absent at all; you have simply been so busy trying to make something happen that you could not recognize what He was already doing.
So today, when you pray “Holy Spirit, have Your way,” do not say it casually. Let it become a declaration of surrender. Give Him permission to rearrange what needs to be rearranged, expose what needs to be exposed, remove what needs to be removed, and change what needs to be changed. Most importantly, give Him permission to start with you. Your prayer is no longer simply, “Holy Spirit, change my situation.” Your prayer becomes, “Holy Spirit, if I am standing in the way of what You are trying to do, change me.”
Let’s Pray:
Father, in the Name of Jesus, I come before You today with a surrendered heart. I have said many times, “Holy Spirit, have Your way,” but today I recognize that there have been places where I wanted You to have Your way as long as Your way agreed with mine. Forgive me for the times I have asked You to lead me while still trying to control the direction. Forgive me for picking back up what I placed in Your hands and for trying to make happen what I should have trusted You to handle. Father, Your Word reminds me that my sufficiency is of You. I do not have to know everything, fix everything, carry everything, or make everything happen. I release the pressure of believing that everything depends on me. Teach me to do what You have assigned to my hands while trusting You with what only You can do. Where control has disguised itself as responsibility, reveal it. Where fear has disguised itself as wisdom, expose it. Where impatience has caused me to move ahead of You, slow me down. Where fear has kept me from moving when You told me to move, give me courage to obey. Holy Spirit, breathe life into every place where I have become tired from trying to accomplish things in my own strength. Breathe into my thoughts, my decisions, my relationships, my purpose, my ministry, my family, and my future. I surrender my plans, my expectations, my timing, and my desired outcome to You. If my plans do not agree with Your will, change them. If my thinking does not agree with Your Word, correct it. If I am holding something You have told me to release, give me the strength to let it go. If I am standing somewhere, that You have told me to leave, give me courage to move. Father, today, I am not asking You merely to bless what I have already decided. I am asking You to show me what You have ordained. I do not want to keep asking You to take the wheel while reaching over and grabbing it back whenever the road becomes unfamiliar. Teach me to trust You when I cannot see what is ahead. Teach me to follow You without needing every detail. Teach me to recognize that surrender is not weakness; surrender is evidence that I trust the One who is leading me. Holy Spirit, have Your way in me. If I am standing in Your way, move me out of the way. Remove my pride, my fear, my need for control, my impatience, and my dependence on my own understanding. I give You permission to rearrange what needs to be rearranged, redirect what needs to be redirected, close what needs to be closed, and open what You have ordained to be opened. I want Your will more than I want my way. Father, today, I release control and choose liberty. I declare that my sufficiency is not in myself; my sufficiency is of God. I will do my part and trust You with Yours. Holy Spirit, lead me, guide me, correct me, transform me, and have Your way. I am moving out of the way so that Your will can have its way in my life. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Tagline: You cannot ask the Holy Spirit to take the wheel while you keep grabbing it back every time, He turns somewhere you did not expect. Real liberty begins when you trust Him enough to release control and let Him lead.
Blessings…
Love, Dr. Jean…
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