From the Inside Out

Bread makers know there is a key ingredient necessary for bread to come out just right. When the flour and salt and various other ingredients have been mixed together, the baker has a lump of dough. That dough certainly isn’t going to become what you would ordinarily use to make a sandwich. A vital ingredient is needed.

Add yeast to the dough, and something almost magical happens. Jesus used this metaphor to explain how we may be ready for eternal life.

He described the work of God in a person’s life as being like the yeast that works in dough. A change happens within the dough because of the power of the change agent, the yeast. The dough cannot raise itself, and even when the yeast is added, the dough does nothing other than experience the change that the yeast brings.

The dough is changed by the yeast working in the dough. Jesus is telling us that when the Holy Spirit enters a life, He will completely change that life from the inside out. When the Holy Spirit comes into a person’s experience, that person isn’t asked to do anything to contribute to God’s work of salvation.

Both justification and sanctification come through faith by leaning entirely upon Jesus and expecting him to do His work in your life.

What the believer is required to do (for want of a better term) is to surrender, to yield, to submit to the working of the grace of God.

This is not salvation by works. Rather, it is a vital key to successful Christian living. God has never asked His followers to do the impossible.

Instead, He has promised to do the impossible in us! He will bring a complete change to every willing heart. A life that makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit is a life that will bring glory to God.