Say NO to Things You Should Not Do 

The sixth thing you need to do every day to stay spiritually strong is by saying no to the things you are not supposed to do. To understand this valuable truth, let’s go once more to the book of Psalms and the writings of David. He prayed to God saying, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me…” (Psalm 19:12,13). 

Notice David asked God in verse 13 to keep him from committing “presumptuous sins.” Essentially, this is the sin of assuming you are to do something without praying and asking God about it first — and I have experienced this firsthand. For years, I assumed that I was to take care of every need that came to my attention. My life became consumed by responsibilities God never intended me to have until I finally came to the realization that pride was keeping me from saying no to people. I wanted to be able to meet everyone’s needs and win their approval, but I nearly lost myself in the process. Sound familiar?

How Much Are You Doing?

Out of the seven things to do every day to stay spiritually strong, avoiding presumptuous sins was the hardest for me. But the truth is that 1) 85 percent of what we do, someone else can do; 2) ten percent of what we do, someone else can be trained to do, and 3) only about five percent of what we do can be done only by us. And that “five percent” is where we need to focus our efforts and energy. 

Sadly, many people aren’t doing the five percent that only they can do because they are too busy doing the 85 or the ten percent. They have said yes to many things, and their presumptuous sins are dominating their lives.

Friend, don’t feel obligated to financially give to every cause or serve on every project you hear about. Look around you. Who has God placed in your life to help you get things done? If you will learn to let go of trying to manage everything and stop saying yes to the things God is asking others to do, your life will be much more peaceful and productive. 

Before you commit to something, stop to pray and ask God what He wants you to do. As you learn to say no to what God has not called you to do, you will liberate others to freely flow in their gifts as well. 

In our next lesson, we will look at one more thing you need to do every day to stay spiritually strong.