Humble Abiding. Surrendering Self Sufficiency For Complete Dependency in ChristAir Date: Apr. 29, 2025

Barlet (Beth 00:02)
As a disciple of Jesus, growing in spiritual maturity can be reflected by how dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit. Today, I dive into the freedom, peace, and power available to us as Christ followers when we lay down our self-sufficiency and rely fully upon God. Let’s get to it. Salty begins right now.

Beth Barlet (00:46)
Welcome to Salted, where I help you uncover the transformative power to know and love Jesus in His fullness and stir up revival within your heart. Join me, Beth Barlett, as I come alongside you every week on the narrow path that draws us into a deeper relationship with Jesus. Get ready to be encouraged, empowered, ignited and equipped as we pursue authentic discipleship to influence the world for the Kingdom of God.

Beth Barlet (01:16)
Hey everyone, welcome to another new episode of the Salted Podcast. I am again just so excited to be with you guys today and just talk about Jesus. I pray that all of you are having an awesome week and that this time together would just further encourage and exhort you on your walk with the Lord. And we’ve been just in an awesome series.

on how to grow as an influencer for the kingdom of God. This is the last part of the four part series. And I wanna thank you for joining us for another episode. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been really diving into the power we as Jesus followers have to influence for the kingdom of God. And we’ve already looked at what it means to be an influencer for his kingdom, what it means to lose our saltiness, how to guard our saltiness.

how to regain our saltiness through the gift of repentance. And today I really want to dive into one of the ways we are to stay salty.

While prepping for this episode, the Holy Spirit reminded me one day while I was running about a vision He gave me about almost now five years ago while I was in prayer. It was a time I was really learning about how to press in in prayer, seek God’s face, hear His voice, and I learned in that time not only to depend on Him fully for all things, but that God doesn’t just hear us, but that He talks back. That’s for another episode. However,

During this vision, I saw a powerful dam that had a huge waterfall, similar to like the Hoover Dam. And it was loud and intimidating and like thunder from heaven. And from the dam came multiple conduits or electrical lines that ran into multiple cities and homes. And within each home, I zeroed in on multiple lights with light bulbs that were actually connected to the power source that lit up the rooms they were in.

And when turned on, it actually dispersed the darkness. And the Lord revealed to me at that time that like the Hoover Dam, he was my power source and that I was a conduit or vessel in which his power and spirit would work in and through me to reflect the light of the world, his son Jesus, to all those around me. But in order to reflect his light, I had to always stay connected and plugged into him to do all that he was asking of me.

and I needed God with me and needed to rely upon Him for all things. And we as children of God and ambassadors for heaven must be fully connected to our power source, the Holy Spirit, at all times. And it’s no wonder that our Christian faith is built upon our ability to abide in Jesus, surrendering to Him, depending upon Him, so that God’s will would be done in and through our lives. However, in order for the Spirit to fully have His way in us,

It’s of utmost importance that we posture our hearts in humility, understanding that this is a virtue highly valued in the kingdom of God. From my own experience and that which I’ve seen in ministry in the church, the concept of humility is one of the most overlooked virtues within the Christian faith.

Humility is the root of all character traits in which we need to seek to possess as Jesus’ disciples and the heart posture needed for true fellowship with the Lord.

We learn from the gospels that even Jesus showed us how dependent He was and how much He relied on prayer and intimacy with His heavenly Father to accomplish His perfect will on earth and that just as He was to represent the Father, we are to represent Jesus by relying fully upon Him to reflect Him to the world. So today, I really want to dive into how a heart of humility cultivates intimacy and dependence upon Christ.

and to challenge you to seek after this virtue with the Holy Spirit in order to deepen your fellowship and influence with God.

to start off by saying that it is our natural tendency to walk in pride and self-sufficiency, believing that our own strength, hard work, and willpower that we can do all things. From the time we are children, we are bred to walk in self-sufficiency and cultivate an independent quote-unquote, I-can-do-it-myself mentality in order to keep up with the ways of this world.

Dependency on our culture, I would go as far to say, is equated to failure and a level of unwanted weakness. And our ego blinds us to our inabilities and falsely convinces us that we have the utmost power and control over our lives and are in no need of God. Even as Christians, we attempt to live our lives by God and for God, but forget or fail to realize that in order to walk in our full calling in the Kingdom of Heaven, we must also live through Him.

As we mature in our walk with Christ and the Holy Spirit begins to work in our hearts to conform us into the image of Jesus, it is imperative for us to resynthesize how to live our lives fully dependent upon Christ alone to fulfill all that the Father has planned to will his work in us and through us for the Kingdom of Heaven. In God’s Kingdom, it is only through resting, abiding, and surrendering to the power and leading of the Holy Spirit

that allows us to walk in the fullness of life available to us and walk in a manner worthy of our calling in Jesus. Pride and self-sufficiency must be replaced by humility and a heart-porned spirit in order for heaven to have its way. Only those who are humbled by God’s mercy and kindness and are those who see their ever-dependent need for Jesus as their Savior experience sinnearness of God.

Unlike the world in which we live that defines maturity and growth by our ability to be independent, maturity in the kingdom is based upon our ability to surrender our lives at the feet of Jesus in all things as we learn to abide. Our ability to walk at an increased capacity to carry what is needed to fulfill the exploits of the kingdom of God is solely dependent upon our level of reliance and submission to Jesus Christ. It is impossible.

for us to carry all that is required of us in the Kingdom in our own strength. It is imperative that we put on the yoke that is easy and light as we submit to the truth that all of our sufficiency is solely found in Jesus.

Jesus said to his disciples before he ascended into heaven that he must leave them in order that the helper may come, and that through his power he would convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, and in turn consecrate and conform us into the image of God’s Son by continually guiding us into all truth. His Spirit would be our advocate, sent to teach us all things, bringing remembrance of everything spoken and done by Jesus and would give us the power to lead a life called of us

honoring and pleasing to God as citizens of his kingdom. After the miracle of Pentecost in the Upper Room, we were given the power of the Spirit of God to help circumcise our hearts to walk in a way pleasing to God and the fullness to spread the gospel. You know, I equate the person of the Holy Spirit as my spiritual GPS, the one I need in order to reach my promised destination.

He is the third yet equal person of the Holy Trinity who will help me to live the life I am called to lead as a disciple of Jesus. He navigates and leads me on the narrow path in which few find to then narrow gate onto the highway of holiness, a life characterized by freedom, joy, peace, deepened intimacy, and capitulation, aka total surrender. He prepares me for my journey by gently leading me into dependency and surrender.

in order that I rely on Him and Him alone to get me through hard terrain and dangers along the way. He equips me for Spirit-led ministry, teaching me to co-labor with Him for the advancement of the Gospel, and sets alerts for me when I’ve walked off course.

Additionally, during those times that I have strayed from the path, He always gives me the clear instructions through the way of repentance to get me back where I need to go, in line with the course set for me by my Heavenly Father. However, like any relationship, this relationship with my Navigator must be cultivated, watered, and grown. We are continually to embrace our weakness and frailty and intimately stay connected to our ultimate life source and buying. Psalm 91, 5.

In John 15, Jesus teaches us, I am the way and you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him, this one bears much fruit. For apart from me, you are not able to do anything. Christlikeness is powered by the Holy Spirit living inside of us. And although we can do a lot and seem busy for the kingdom, apart from Jesus, we can do nothing of eternal value. We have no power to produce in our hearts or do anything worthwhile.

that will produce fruit that remains, fruit that will change not only our hearts, but people’s lives for all eternity.

It is imperative that we fight against our flesh that desires self-sufficiency and independence, and the vain imaginations that produce the strongholds in our mind that we can do all things on our own. For it is only when we abide in the love of Jesus and intentionally spend time in His presence seeking Him for all things that we will fully be united with the Father in order that the world will know the love of Christ. It is not by our own strength or power, but with the Spirit. For true life, eternal life, Jesus tells us.

is that we may instantly know Him and the ways of His Father in heaven. The more we absorb ourselves in the presence, the more our desire grows to be conformed into His image and we allow God to will and work in us according to His good pleasure for the ultimate glory in our lives.

Basically, the power of our influence must come from our willingness to be influenced by the one we so desperately love. The more we behold Him, the more we will become more like Him. The more we are in His presence, intimately attached to Him, the more we will be able to reflect His life. A sultry life of righteousness, purity, and obedience is simply an overflow of the work of God’s presence within our lives. If we are to follow Jesus and bear fruit for His kingdom,

By being more like Him, we must genuinely and intimately know His teachings, His ways, but mostly His heart. And throughout all of Jesus’ ministry, He is constantly teaching His disciples the heart postures and the ever-dependent need to rely, seek, and obey the will of our Heavenly Father. We are to be nothing so that Jesus can be everything, fully surrendered and submitted to His will and ways so that He may be glorified through us. However,

Because this doesn’t come natural to us, many times God must use trials or even hard situations in order to humble us, discipline us, open our eyes to our utter weakness and need for our full dependence upon Him and to realize our need for His grace. Even Deuteronomy 8.2 states, Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these 40 years to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.

Now like the apostle Paul, stored in the flesh, God leads us into seasons and situations to help protect us from pride.

It is when we fall into pride that we fall into prayerlessness and hinder our intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Pride convinces us we don’t need to stay connected to our power source and that we can do all things in our own strength, in our own way, and in our own time. It was pride that caused Lucifer to fall from heaven believing he was like God and we can see how this sin of pride entered into the world in the Garden of Eden when Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of this event, our sinful human nature believes we know everything

and in turn we stop trusting our God.

God knew that if his children ate that fruit, they would think they didn’t need him and try to find happiness without him. Blinded to the fact that there is no such thing as happiness without God and life without God would be no life at all. It has always been God’s will throughout scripture to teach, show and remind his people that he is their Lord, their God, who is their ultimate source of life and provision as your creator, sustainer and deliverer. He desires that we as his people are to seek him, to know him, love him,

and be fully dependent upon Him for all things.

Throughout scripture, God and His sovereignty uses impossible situations to reveal how powerful, steadfast, merciful and gracious He is and how helpless, wicked and frail that we as His people are. It’s when our hearts are in a state of self-sufficiency, righteousness and complacency in wake of our successes that we cease to fear God, exchange gratitude for entitlement and fall into self-idolatry or ideology of things we begin to trust instead of God.

When we become strong, prideful, self-sufficient, and successful and try to take our lives, our decisions in our own hands, relying on our own strength and dependent of God, and fail to see that all of our successes and favors solely due to unfailing love and grace of God, the Bible tells us we walk unfaithfully in danger of utter destruction. 2 Chronicles 26-15.

Because our culture is constantly prioritizing pride, independence, self-exaltation, and self-sufficiency with the you can do anything you put your mind to mentality, it is so hard to break this mentality without the complete surrender and dependence upon the Holy Spirit in order to live out our faith relying fully on Christ for all things in order to bear fruit eternally for God’s kingdom in our everyday lives.

I have to admit that I am one of those people who have a go-getter, do-it-myself mentality, one who has a tendency to take pride in not needing help and thriving off getting things done in proficiency and ahead of time. But God knows me so well and he knows that he needs me as I mature in Christ spiritually, that in order to be fully surrendered to his will and leading of his spirit, I must kill this tendency within me and be very aware of my pride and self-sufficiency and tendency toward control.

and trying to do things on my own apart from him.

I remember right after I was saved that immediately the Holy Spirit, like Jesus, led me into the wilderness to humble and test me. If I look at two of the most difficult seasons in my life over the past 10 years, both have forced me to rely 110 % on Him as He taught me that He is my power source, my healer, deliverer, Redeemer, and my provider. He revealed Himself to me, His character, and taught me to trust in His goodness, faithfulness, love, and His perfect timing.

and not only the big things, but also the small. First, he started with the big, making me have faith to trust in him in the things that are beyond my control. And right after I gave my life to the Lord, he marked my heart with a strong desire to actually have children as a form of worship for all he did for me on the cross. And I desire to raise them to know, love, and serve him. However, what the Lord showed me was that it was in his perfect time, not mine.

and I journeyed this wilderness of infertility for almost six years. It was one of the toughest times in my life with so many emotions, heartache, but also joy that I will touch upon in another episode. However, the groaning he placed inside of me was what drove me into the secret place to seek his will for my life and his heart.

Even though lots of tears were shed, my husband and I continued to believe in God’s word and promises and prayed for a child every day for six years.

And remember a friend once said that she felt sorry for me, but I told her that no, during this time of my life, in this heartache and the pressing, it was where I found God. It was where I wrestled with him, encountered his presence and power and learned how to hear from him and be fully led by his spirit. He taught me for six years how to let go and let God,

God continues to work on my pride and self-sufficiency by showing me the things I can’t control are in his hands. But as I mature, he also continues to show me that even the things I can control are in his hands as well. And if I just let go and trust in him and seek his will in his face, his best for me will come to fruition.

Since having my children, he has worked every day to break my self-sufficiency and rely on him for all things, even the little things such as patience, gentleness, kindness, but also strength and joy and getting rid of my idle of control. you know, raising two children under three, a two and a half year old and a newborn, the last four to six months has been one of the hardest seasons, but one of the most rewarding.

needing God not only physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. From juggling, breastfeeding, 24-7, potty training, diaper changes, sleepless nights, he knew he had to humble me, test me, and kill that much more of my self-sufficiency in not only the big things but the small. And this whole year, I really felt that this process of stripping that he really wanted to do in me was to bring me to the end of myself.

as sometimes even emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, in order to remember my utter dependence and need for him in all things, so that I would be that much of a better surrendered vessel available for his special purposes on earth for his glory. And so that each day I would be conformed more into the image of his son Jesus.

It is definitely a transition moving from one baby to two. I think the saying is one to two seems like one to 11.

But quick note, you know, I remember hearing from the Lord that when I was called to do this podcast, that I would do it solely by relying on him alone and to be sure of it, that he specifically wanted me to start it during the most inconvenient, hardest season I would walk through right after the birth of my second child.

And you know, anyone with common sense would suggest that this would not be a good time because it would be too much to start a podcast and bring home a newborn at the same time trying to take care of a two and a half year old. However, I specifically heard that this was on purpose so that I would be forced to depend fully on the Holy Spirit and his grace for strength and wisdom. And that through it by fully relying on him,

that his grace would be perfected in my weakness and he would be glorified

Knowing my fleshy tendencies, he knew that I would be so at the end of myself mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally during this hard season that in my heart the only option would be to cry out for him alone to help me and rely fully upon him. It was as every day was chaos in my house. I remember breaking down and crying certain days because I felt like I had no control and the pride and self-sufficiency that thrived

on my control and my routines and schedules crumble before my eyes. And it sounds silly, but it forced me to be more fully spirit led and embrace being flexible, adaptable, uncomfortable. And I wrestled with God about it every day, a lot actually, from a place of exhaustion physically, strained mentally, and dry and barren spiritually, just because it took a toll on my devotional life. And I had to press into him with so much more intentionality.

And I really believe that the Lord used this hard season to just draw me back into the secret place. And often, when I look back on these seasons, I think of the biblical character, Jacob.

who learned from his trials and uncertain circumstances how to fully depend upon and rely on complete humility upon God. I love this story in Genesis 32 about he was transformed from someone who tried to do things pridefully in his own hands throughout his life in his own control and time instead of waiting on God’s timing and provision to one who after wrestling with God came to realize that it was only when he was in his weakest moment relying fully upon God alone

Did he have the greatest strength? That a heart of humility represented through a physical limp was what he needed to walk in the faith he needed to trust God and allow himself to be fully exposed.

Many times, like Jacob, we must wrestle with God in the secret place until we realize our weakness before Him and that we must walk through seasons of divine discipline to break our confidence in our own strength and acknowledge that God is all-powerful and all-sufficient and that we are helpless and hopeless and completely dependent upon Him. And for us to understand what it truly means when Paul says that God’s grace is perfected in our weakness.

Many times we need times of difficulty to force us to lose the grip we have on the idols in our lives we depend upon to give us security and assurance instead of trusting in, relying upon, and being fully led by his spirit.

Moses’ deep intimacy and reliance upon his relationship with God was what led an entire nation to the wilderness. His encounters with God’s glory and presence were used to exhort those he was called to lead and disciple and build a nation of Israel’s faith. Spending time in God’s presence through prayer, fellowship, and walking the Spirit is what separates us from the rest of the world, and that must be water-grown and cultivated

in order to bear fruit and reap the harvest called of us for God’s kingdom. Moses knew the importance of not walking with the presence of God as he begged God that he needed his presence alone to go before him in order to fill the anointed task God had given him to bring him glory. He knew that it would not only bring him favor but also protection and rest.

If God’s presence not go with us, if we do not seek rest and abide in Him, there is nothing that will differentiate us, separate and set apart us from the world around us. Jesus reminds us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. We live not by strength or by might but by His Spirit. Zachariah 4.6. It’s God’s presence alone living and residing within us.

that enables us to be the salt of the earth and we must remember that he wants to partner with us to make himself known to those who do not know him. Moses understood that he needed God above and beyond everything else and that nothing without God’s presence could bear fruit for his eternal kingdom.

He says in Exodus 33, 15, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight? I and your people, is it not in your going with us that we are separate? I and your people from every other people on the face of the earth. How often do we miss God’s blessing or get ourselves in a bind when we try to help God out? How do we learn to fully rely on God and trust in his plan?

How often are we walking through trials because God wants us to learn how to in faith trust in Him fully, to know Him, and lose our grip on this life? Sister, in Jesus name, God is not only the foundation and framework of your life, but your power source. You are a daughter who humbly admits she needs to fully rely and depend on her Creator for all things. You are a saltive woman who remembers that Jesus not only takes away your sin, but He gives you the fullness of His abundant life.

You are not just meant to be just cleaned up by the power of his blood, but also to be filled up by his spirit so you would bring him glory. Today in Jesus name, I pray that the Holy Spirit would free and you from the burden of self-sufficiency, pride and independence and help you instead turn to God in full humility, surrender, independence and faith. That people would know God because of your proximity to Jesus and his presence and power working in and through you.

I pray that God’s grace would be perfected in your weakness and that you would have realized that when you were weak before Jesus, you are strong. And I pray that you would by the power of the Holy Spirit, stay salty and that you would lead a generation closer to Christ. I look forward to seeing you guys here next week. Amen.

Beth Barlet (25:51)
I pray this episode has blessed you today. I appreciate our time together and I hope our conversation has deepened your faith. Don’t forget to check out today’s show notes for episode links and additional information. Be sure to share this podcast with a friend, review it, and hit subscribe so you don’t miss one episode. Go to my website www.thesaltedpodcast.com and subscribe to my newsletter to be part of our Salted community. Remember,

Being salted takes intentionality. See you here next time.