A Tip to maximise your Mid-Week Truth Turn Up …
Your Mid-Week Truth Turn Up is a 'meaty' devotional that can re-centre your heart on Jesus as you go along in your week. The devotional is slightly lengthier than a daily devotional and that is because I post them only once a week and they are meant to be your repeat meditation for the next 7 days till you receive the next Truth Turn Up. My tip is therefore that as your week goes on, you visit and re-visit your Mid-Week Truth Turn up and meditate on the Bible Meditation passage, my write up as well as the Further Study at the bottom of the devotional. Take the whole week to meditate on it and get it into your spirit. Do not try to compress the whole devotional into one reading. Enjoy (* wink *) Coach Toyin
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I sat down to write this Truth Turn Up not fully certain about what was going to pour out of me onto the pages. The Lord had been impressing a theme on my heart that I knew He wanted me to share – to do with the fact that it is in Him, in His Presence that we find life, power, purpose, strength, and freedom, and therefore, as people doing life behind the Narrow Gateway, we should be passionate pursuers of God’s Presence. I shared this in a Facebook Live session earlier this week and gave practical tips on how to stay connected with the Lord even during a busy day. However, sitting here and preparing to write this Truth Turn Up, I continued to get this strong sense in my heart that the Lord had more to say on this topic.
As I prayed and meditated on the promptings in my heart, I felt a stirring whirl up in me. It was a longing and passion to know God more, to love Him more, to have Him lead me closely, to hear His heartbeat. My heart felt warm as I sat there behind my laptop, listening to worship songs and just sort of meditating on the Word of the Lord. And as my desires surged, and as I pictured myself sitting at His feet, edging closer to His throne, gazing upon His face, I asked the Lord again to help me to love Him more. I asked Him to help me to love His Presence and to love to be intimate with Him. I asked Him to anoint my head with oil and let His anointing overflow in my life, so that I would be equipped to do the work He has called me to do as a Christian Life Coach. “Holy Spirit, I need You,” I cried, my heart swelling with a yearning to be enveloped in His Presence. And it was then that I realized that that is it. That is the place that God wants to bring each and everyone of us to. He loves us so much and He has so much for us. And He wants us to yearn for His courts. He wants us to be so desperate for Him that we say, “You or nothing at all, Lord!” And when we seek Him with all our heart, He gives us Himself, that is, the Holy Spirit, who is our HELP and our GUIDE. So my heart’s cry for myself, and for you this week is, “COME HOLY SPIRIT, I NEED YOU! COME SWEET SPIRIT, I PRAY. COME IN YOUR STRENGTH AND YOUR POWER, COME IN YOUR OWN SPECIAL WAY.”I’ll update The Narrow Gateway YouTube Heartsongs page with this song. Another song to check out on our Heartsongs page is Hungry For You.
“Holy Spirit, I need You,” I cried, my heart swelling with a yearning to be enveloped in His Presence. And it was then that I realized that that is it. That is the place that God wants to bring each and everyone of us to.
Oh how we need the Holy Spirit! He is the Person of the Presence of God and He dwells with us. He is right there, in our hearts, dwelling, leading, prompting, feeding, stirring. He is the One who brings conviction into our hearts and calls us to draw nearer to God. He is the One who gives us the assurance in our hearts that we are indeed children of God. 
He is the One who leads us in the way that we should go and reminds us of the Words and the ways of God so that we can walk in them. He is the One who intercedes on our behalf before the Father. He is the One that speaks in us and through us at all times, especially when we are faced with trials and tribulations. He is the One who helps us in our weaknesses and gives us His strength. He is the One who makes us as BOLD AS LIONS and enables us to do the OUTRAGEOUS in His might! We can literally do nothing without the Holy Spirit! I will fail at being Toyin Oladiran, Christian Life Coach and Founder of the Narrow Gateway, without the Holy Spirit. You can literally NOT do life behind the Narrow Gateway without the help of the Holy Spirit. We are nothing without Him. But with Him, we are EVERYTHING we need to be, and we can do ALL THINGS.
Our feature Bible texts:
We have two feature Bible texts today and both are an admonition and a reminder of the fact that all we are is in this God of Love, and we get our very essence and life from Him. Therefore, we should walk in close connection and intimacy with Him, because outside of Him, we can do nothing.
Acts 17:28a For in Him we live and move and have our being.
Galatians 5:25 If we live BY the Spirit, let us walk IN the Spirit.
He is the One who makes us as BOLD AS LIONS and enables us to do the OUTRAGEOUS in His might! We can literally do nothing without the Holy Spirit!
Our walk with the Holy Spirit should be so real, that we can hear His voice leading us and directing us on a moment by moment basis. Look at Phillip in Acts 8:29. The Spirit of God instructed him to go to the chariot carrying the Ethiopian eunuch, and out of that encounter, the eunuch came to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and be baptized. How about when Jesus was baptized with water and the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove? The Bible says in Mark 1:12 that immediately after that, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wildnerness to be tempted, and though He was tempted, He was strengthened by God and did not sin. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 16:6-7 we see that Paul and Timothy were forbidden by the Holy Spirit from preaching in Asia and some areas because at that time, God’s plan was for them to go to Macedonia, and we see that God did some mighty works through them there, and even connected them with other believers like Lydia. The crux is, dear friends, that since we have chosen to do life behind the Narrow Gateway, then we need to keep in step with the Holy Spirit. He is going somewhere. We need to be hot on His heels, listening, following, imitating and surrendering.
Folks, I just love how this week’s Truth Turn Up was birthed. The Lord was literally taking me through what He wanted to share with you. And I believe this is for someone out there who feels like he is doing life blindly or at the very least in his own strength. If that is you, please take this Word and act on it intentionally, and watch your life grow and expand as the Holy Spirit breathes His life and might into it.
Let us pray:
Come Holy Spirit, we need You. Come Sweet Spirit, we pray. Come in Your strength and Your power. Come in Your own special way. We need You every moment of every hour. We need You to lead us, to guide us, to empower us, to strengthen us. We need You to enable us to please God. We need You to teach us the ways and the Word of the Lord. We need You to guide us into all truth and bring to our remembrance the life, person and works of Jesus Christ. We are not satisfied with anything substandard. We are not here for bread crumbs falling off the table. We do not want to remain in the ordinary. We want the real deal. We want You Holy Spirit. We want to know You. We want Your voice to be the only one that guides and leads our lives. We want our hearts to beat with the rhythm of Your heart beat. We are here, not for what we can get from You, but rather for joy and glory of knowing You. Come Holy Spirit, we need You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
And I believe this is for someone out there who feels like he is doing life blindly or at the very least in his own strength.
Let’s have a last word:
Do you have a habit of asking the Holy Spirit to guide your steps and lead you every day? Do you incline your ear to His voice and listen for what He has to say and then fall in step with His way? I do, sometimes. And sometimes, I am too caught up in the noise around me that I either don’t bother to tune into the Spirit, or I just don’t feel like I want to be guided by anything outside of my personal preferences. But right now, I am at a place in my life where my heart is yearning for more. I want more of Jesus; more of His Presence, His anointing, His handprint, all over my life. And I know He is standing ready to take me deeper and deeper into Him. Would you like to join me on this journey with the Lord, deeper and deeper into the Narrow Gateway? If so, please feel free to email me on thenarrowgateway@gmail.com. I love to work with people one on one or in groups, using programs that the Lord has enabled me to create, to help you, and myself, go deeper, behind the Narrow Gateway.
Critically, I want to end this by saying, I am Toyin, fully convicted by my words, and very much still under construction in the hands of a loving Father. Till next time…
Written by Toyin Oladiran (Christian Life Coach, Founder of The Narrow Gateway)