Daily Thought: Willing to Relinquish

No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Logos Bible Software Edition

Daily Thought: A life of Absolute Surrender

If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment? And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in that trust.

A life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. I do not deny that. Yes, it has something far more than difficulties: it is a life that with men is absolutely impossible. But by the grace of God, by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, it is a life to which we are destined, and a life that is possible for us, praise God! Let us believe that God will maintain it.

Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender, Olive Tree Bible Software Edition

Daily Thought: Yield and Abide

"If Christ is to 'remain' or  'abide' in us, we must allow him to do so.  Our responsibility here is more passive than active.  We have to yield daily, freshly to his control of our lives.  We must seek to live moment by moment in total openness to him, so that his life and power flow into us as the sap rises in the tree at spring time." ~ John Stott, Life in Christ, p. 52

Daily Thought: No Exception Clauses

"And Jesus never left open the option of selective commitment.  There are no exception clauses.  You don't  get to say, 'I follow Jesus—but when it comes to this area of my life, I do things my way.' If you call yourself a Christian, by definition you are committing to following Christ with every area of your life.  It doesn't mean you will follow perfectly, but you can't say, 'I'm a Christian' and then refuse to follow Christ when it comes to certain people or places or practices." ~ Kyle Idleman, Not a Fan, pp. 146-47

Daily Thought: God Will Maintain It

"A life of absolute surrender has its difficulties.  I do not deny that.  Yes, it has something far more than difficulties: it is a life that with men is absolutely impossible.  But by the grace of God, by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, it is a life to which we are destined, and a life that is possible for us, praise God! Let us believe that God will maintain it." ~ Andrew Murray, Humility and Absolute Surrender, p. 72

Take My Heart and Seal It

Tuesday evenings Jenny and I meet with our Life Group from Church.  I am so very blessed to be part of this wonderful group and I immensely enjoy our time together.

This past Tuesday night we started out with some singing and one of the songs we sung was Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  After we were done singing and before we started our time of study our group leader led us in a time of prayer, and he used some of the words from the song.

The words that lept to my attention were these from the third verse:

here's my heart, O take and seal it,  seal it for thy courts above.


As Adam prayed those words I thought to myself;  "What a wonderful truth that we should pray every day."  So often our time of pray we try to make it through the list of requests we have for God.  "God do this for me," we say, and in the process we overlook the need to daily surrender our lives and our hearts to God.  We need to give our hearts to God, so we don't give them away to lesser things.

May we take these words as use them in our prayer today: God have my heart, seal it with Your love, and prepare me for Your Kingdom.

Surrendering My Entire Life

Following Jesus is not easy.  If it was everyone would do it because the what Jesus offers us is so great.  I believe following Jesus is the best way to live your life, but it is anything but easy.  It is a radical commitment that requires our entire lives.

John Ortberg wrote; "Millions of people in churches these days could be called 'pew potatoes.' They want some of the comfort associated with the spirituality, but they don't want to risk the challenge that go along with actually following Jesus" (If You Want To Walk On Water, You've Got To Get Out Of The Boat; p. 22).

Take a moment and consider your life. Examine the way you live and the desires of your heart. Now answer this question, "Is that what Jesus wants from your life?"

While we might have desire to follow Jesus our lives tell a different story. We want the promises of God, we want the hope which comes from being a Christian, but we are not willing to live like a follower of Christ. We put on a religious show so people may think that we are spiritual and love Jesus, but we still primarily do what we want to do.  We have not fully committed out lives to Jesus, but we go through the motions of religion so we can tell ourselves that we are following Jesus.

To follow Jesus means that we have died to our idea of what it means to live.  The apostle Paul wrote:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20; ESV). 

Remember the story of human history is that we rebell from the Creator's original design, that we have decided what it means to be human, and as a result the entire world is messed up.  We have proven that our way to live life is a bad way to live.

Jesus came to save us from the consequences of our rebellious and sinful actions as well as to show us what it means to be human.  In Jesus we see the way we were meant to live.  For us to do that we have to reject the world's definitions for life, and follow Jesus' definition.

This is where things get uncomfortable and challenging, because we go against what people in our culture (even our church culture) find acceptable.  We truly become foreigners and aliens living in a strange land (1 Peter 2:11).

The foundation for living differently, for getting out of our pews to being disciples of action, is our commitment.  We will not follow through with the life change or the transformation of our beliefs and thoughts if we are not first committed to Jesus.  So the apostle Paul wrote:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2; ESV)

In light of all the great things that God has done for us, including saving us from the power of sin and death, we should offer our lives to Him.  Not just 10% of our lives, but our entire lives.  We are to be, as Paul says, living sacrifices.  Our bodies, minds, actions, and desires are offered to God so they can be transformed, and we can understand His will and how that applies to our lives.

Offering our lives to God is not easy.  The reason is because we still want to be in charge of our lives.  We want to be able to decided what we want to do.  All we require of God is to bless us now and again, but that type of thinking misses the point.  The point is that the only way to truly be human is to living according to God's will.  He is the Creator, and He knows what it means to be human.

So the question we have ask ourselves is this: Do I trust God enough to surrender my entire life to Him?

Daily Thought: It Begins with Us

"The beginning point is always ourselves.  We must submit our lives to Jesus Christ, let him change our hearts and character, become servants, and model a life of humility and sacrifice.  Then our spiritual density will make us magnetic.  The more Christ reigns in our lives, the more people will be drawn to the Jesus in us." ~ Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force, p. 78

Daily Thought: Surrendered to God's Will

"The strongest human will is always the one that is surrendered to God's will and acts with it." ~ Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 152

Being What Jesus Desires

Water is one of life’s essentials. As scientists look for life on other planets one of the things they look for is the presence of water, because without water life cannot exist. We need water to survive.

I know that when it is hot out, like it is right now in mid-July, there is nothing better than something cold to drink. Sometimes you will hear someone respond when asked what they would like to drink, “I don’t care as long as it is cold.” When it is hot outside being able to drink a glass of cold water is a very good thing.

When the weather is cooler there is little better to help keep you warm than hot water. I love taking hot showers in the winter time along with drinking a large mug of hot chocolate. Many people turn to hot water for therapeutic reasons, to relax stiff muscles and release tension. Having hot water is a very good thing.

I remember going out to fix fence with my brother on a hot summer day while growing up on the farm. We were driving the loader tractor with bucket full of what we would need. On the tractor was a jug of water left over from when we baled hay a couple of weeks before, and being thirsty I took a big gulp of that water and immediately spit it out. It was terrible! The water in that jug was good for nothing.

There is a passage in Revelation that we misinterpret so often. Christ Jesus has the apostle John write these words to the church in Laodicea:

“‘ know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16; ESV).

The way we normally hear this passage interpreted is that Jesus wants us to either be on fire for Him or totally cold towards Him rather than trying to ride the fence between the two. Such an interpretation misses out on a very important point of what Jesus was saying: cold water is good to drink. Cold water isn’t bad, but it is a very good a useful thing, just as hot water is useful and good.

The point Jesus is making is that the Laodiceans thought they were so self-sufficient, that they had things so together, that they were not useful to Him. Because of their wealth, their medicine, and their education they thought they had everything they needed, but Jesus reminds them that they didn’t. Not only did their city lack a good source of fresh water, but they lacked the humility and the faith to experience God’s transforming power in their lives.

Craig Keener in Revelation: The NIV Application Commentary wrote:

“Laodicea boasted great resources, but while the Laodicean Christians likely shared their Laodicean neighbor’s pride over their self-sufficiency in many respects, they presumably also shared a common dislike for their water supply...In contrast to its claims of self-sufficiency (3:17), it had to pipe in its water; though much of the aqueduct from the south was underground nearer the city it came through stone barrel pipes, thus remaining vulnerable to any intended besiegers who wished to cut off the city’s water supply. More important, this water had grown lukewarm by the time of its arrival. 

“The point of the lukewarm water is simply that it is disgusting, in contrast to the more directly useful ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ water; all the churches would plainly understand this warning...Jesus thus finds the church in Laodicea to be other than what he desires (cf. Isa. 5:2-6). In today’s English, he is telling the self-satisfied church in Laodicea: ‘I want water that will refresh me, but you remind me instead of the water you always complain about. You make me want to puke” (pp. 158-159).

Jesus desires that His followers be a certain type of people. We are to be poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and peacemakers just to name a few characteristics. When we are proud and live our lives on our own terms rather than by God’s will we become something that is disgusting Jesus. We are unfit to be called His disciples, and He will get rid of us if we don’t comply to His desires. It is then that we can be used for His purposes.

Yes, it is good not to sit on the fence and to have our passion run hot for Jesus, but that was not the problem Jesus was addressing with the Church in Laodicea. Their problem was a refusal to rely on the grace of God for life as they insisted that they could find life on their own. Jesus wanted to remind them that they weren’t as self-reliant as they thought. We must heed this warning, not to try to muster up our passion for Jesus, but rather to humbly surrender our lives to Him. That is when we will be the most useful to Him.

Daily Thought: Surrender to the Spirit

"The Bible is not a tool for sharpening our religious  competence, but a living and active sword for cleaving our double-minded thoughts and motives, exposing and transforming the contents of our hearts (see Heb. 4:12).  The best guard against any handling of the Scripture that leaves our souls untouched—and ourselves unchanged—is surrender to the cleansing, forming flow of the Holy Spirit." ~ Richard Foster, Life With God, p. 62

The Lord Waits

Originally posted Tuesday, September 21, 2004

But the LORD still waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the LORD is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for him to help them. ~ Isaiah 30:18; NLT

I am full of talk. When I am feeling down it is easy for me to talk about waiting on the Lord and trusting the plans of God, but my actions tell a different story. Rather than going to God for comfort I seek other ways to distract myself from the circumstances that I find myself in, and then I wonder why nothing changes in my life.

In Isaiah God makes it clear that He wants to help us. His desire is to show us the love, the grace, and the forgiveness that we need to have in our lives. Though God's love is unconditional and is offered to everyone; we still must choose to go to God in order to receive it. We will not discover it while we are trying to find life on our own.

How do we receive the love and the life God has for us? King David in Psalm 51 gives us an insight on how we are to approach God:

You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them. If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it. The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise (vv. 16, 17; NLT).

We are not to approach God with a religious piety and tradition. Going through the motions of a religion does not move God's heart. What moves the heart of God is when we approach Him weak and broken; not because He enjoys to see our suffering, but because it is when we are broken that we are most apt to realize that our only hope is God. Until we approach the throne of God broken and repentant we will never realize the awesome love God has for us. Pride is the biggest obstacle we have in experiencing the love God has for us.

When we are prideful we look to change our circumstance on our own. We will pursue happiness the way we think is best. We may say all the right things and do all the right things, but pride will keep us from experiencing God's love.

I am so tired of mouthing the right things and ignoring God. My pride has kept me from admitting my weakness and my need for God's strength. My prayer is that I come before God broken and repentant, calling on Him for mercy and grace.

Let God Take Care of the Rest

Sin is a constant thorn in our side. The deeper we grow in our relationship with God the more obvious our sin becomes. We begin to understand why God hates sin and why it destroys our relationship with Him. Even with this knowledge sin remains a continual problem for us.

I say this, not to excuse the sin in our lives, but to remind us of what repentance really is. Repentance means to change our allegiance. We are to defect from the ways of this world and commit to the ways of Jesus. I believe this is where many of us go wrong. We feel sorry for the sin in our lives, but we don’t want to give up the things of this world. This results in continued bondage to sin.

Writing to Christians in Ephesus the apostle Paul wrote:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity (Ephesians 4:17-19; ESV).

I want us to pay attention to what Paul is writing to Christians. First, he tells them that they are not to walk (or to live) like the Gentiles (unbelievers) do. The Apostle expects followers of Christ to make an intentional decision to change their lives, which begins with their priorities. Second, Paul tells these Christians that the way that unbelievers live keeps them alienated from God and gives them a hard heart. What is the implication for Christians who continue to follow the ways of unbelievers? They too will be alienated from God and become hard hearted. If we are struggling with sin in our lives it could be that we have never truly repented and that we are still following the ways of the world.

Let’s continue with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:


But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:20-24; ESV).

Again we find ourselves at the point of having to make a decision. The first decision Paul tells us to make is the decision to reject the way of the world. The second decision to to allow our minds to be renewed. This is the second mistake many of us make. We think we have to be the ones to renew our minds, and so we establish all these little rules and disciplines to try to change our thinking. Yet it doesn’t seem to work. We keep telling ourselves that we need to try a little harder or that we need to add more structure to our lives and become more discipline. In the end many of us become exhausted because it as hard as we try we just can’t seem to renew our minds.

This is the bolt of truth that hit me this weekend: I am not the one who does the renewing! I can’t do it! I am living life in the flesh which has been corrupted by sin, and try as I might I can’t break free. My life has constantly felt like taking one step forward and two steps back, and it is trying and discouraging.

Here is what we need to do in order to have our minds renewed and to receive God’s righteousness: surrender. Offer our lives to God everyday through prayer. Admit that we don’t have what takes, pour out our hearts desire to Him, and commit to following wherever He leads.

This is how Paul describes it in Romans:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2; ESV).

In salvation there are things that God expects us to do (respond in faith, repent, surrender), but there are other things that only God can do. Perhaps it is time that we stop trying to do what only God can do and focus on what He expects from us.

Broken to Surrender

I love to read stories about how God has transformed the lives of people. Consider the story of Basilio Clark.

Any of the old-timers living in Olongapo, Philippines, near Subic Bay (once the home to the American Seventh Fleet), will tell you that Basilio Clark, the warm Baptist pastor who plays his guitar and sings so beautifully, is a different person from the one who terrorized the same city in his youth.

A clue to his background is found in his name--Basilio Clark. Basilio is a Filipino name; Clark, an American name. Basilio’s father was an American serviceman; his mother, a Filipino who met and fell in love with the handsome American. After several children were born, Basilio’s father was killed in an automobile accident. Without enough food at home, the boy began to run the streets, stealing from the sidewalk vendors and shopkeepers in the open markets of Olongapo.

As a teenager, Basilio was the head of a gang who robbed, plundered, murdered, and pillaged at will. Holing up one night with his gang, Basilio slept as police surrounded the hideout. They took him and his companions captive.

The judge, glad to be able to rid the area of such terrors, showed no mercy. Basilio and his eight companions were sentenced to die in the electric chair. They were quickly moved to Bilibid prison in Muntinglupa, just outside of Manila. The massive steel doors of the fortress-like prison closed, ominously signaling the end.

The electric chair at Muntinglupa sends thousands of volts of electricity into a frail body, short-circuiting the heart and stopping life. Basilio and his gang feared death this way and chose rather to die at their own hands.

Mixing insecticide, which had been smuggled into the prison, with paint thinner they were able to steal, the nine of them formed a circle and drank the deadly potion. Of the nine, only one survived: Basilio, and he was blind.

He had failed in life and he had failed in death. While he awaited his appointment with the electric chair, Basilio began to listen to a little radio that Olga Robertson, a faithful prison worker, had given the prisoners. This little radio known as a PM (Portable Missionary), played but one station, DZAS, the voice of the Far East Broadcasting Company. Day after day as Basilio listened, God began to speak to his heart. From there Basilio slowly surrendered his life to Jesus.

Gaining his confidence, Mommie Olga, as the prisoners affectionately called her, began to disciple and teach Basilio the Word of God. Then going from cell block to cell block, Basilio began to tell other prisoners that God had forgiven him and that he had repented of his sins.

It quickly became obvious that this was no longer the tough youth who had terrorized Olongapo, but a changed man whose eyes no longer saw--but they did shed tears over his fellow prisoners. Something had happened! Something big.

Eventually, the president of the Philippines issued a pardon to Basilio Clark, and he was released. Going back to his home a changed man, Basilio continued to share his faith.

While it would be easy to give the credit to Basilio’s transformation to the voices he heard over the radio and the discipleship of Olga Robertson, the reality is that they are just vehicles God used to connect with Basilio. God was the one who worked the miracle--and what He did for a thug and gangster He can do for you. Changed lives are what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Paul was right, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). (Harold Sala, Profiles in Faith, pp. 71-74)

Many of us have lives that are broken by sin. They are broken by the sin which we struggle with and by the consequences of the sin of other people. The only way we can have lives that are transformed, like the transformation Basilio Clark experienced, is to surrender our lives to Jesus. Surrendering isn’t a one time act, but the constant giving away our lives to the will of God.

In Acts 2 we read about the beginnings of the Church. I hope that you take that time to read it, but because of space I will summarize what happens. The disciples of Jesus, lead by the 11 apostles, are in Jerusalem. It is the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the crucifixion and around a week since Jesus ascended into heaven. The disciples receive the power of the Holy Spirit and begin to preach to the crowd, which is large because of the festival. At some point Peter becomes the chief speaker, and his words center on Jesus, which prick the hearts of the listeners. They cry out; “What must we do to be saved!’ and Peter answers that they must repent and be baptized. On that day 3,000 men were added to the number of Christ Followers.

Not only did they become members of the Church, but their lives began to change as the devoted themselves to the teachings of Jesus, as taught by the apostles, to fellowship, to pray, and Communion. These new disciples were community focused and served and helped one another as they committed themselves to Jesus.

From the historical account found in the book of Acts we can make several observations about surrendering to Jesus. The first observation is: surrendering is the result of understanding God’s Word.

“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!” Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
(Acts 2:36-37; NLT).

The people listening to Peter’s sermon had experienced the events that took place 50 days before (the death and resurrection of Jesus). They had talked about what happened and maybe even debated who Jesus was, but it was the result of hearing the Word of God preached that God was able to connect with their hearts.

Similarly we are often moved to repentance and surrender when we are convicted in our hearts by the Word of God. We will not surrender our lives to Jesus until we have an understanding of our situation apart from Jesus Christ. If we think we can get by or if we can change our lives on our own then we will not bow a knee to the Lord of lords. Scripture, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is the main tool God uses to convict people of their brokenness. When we are brought face to face with our broken lives the only thing left for us to do is to give our lives to the One who can make us whole.

Second, surrendering requires repentance and baptism. When the listeners of this first Christian sermon became convicted of their brokenness they cried out for help; “What should we do?” (Acts 2:37,) And Peter’s response is quite clear; “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). If we are going to surrender to Jesus then we need to repent and then we need to be baptized.

What exactly is repentance? I think the best way to describe repentance is with the word defection. Repentance means that we have been part of the kingdom of Darkness and we defect and join the Kingdom of Light. We decide to no longer side with God’s enemies and instead we become one of His allies. Repentance is the changing of our minds, wills, and loyalties. This was at the heart of Jesus’ message. Jesus proclaimed; “The time promised by God has come at last! The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”(Mark 1:15; NLT). This is what Jesus is saying: “Believe God’s Word and join His Kingdom!” Through God’s Word we are made aware of our broken condition and through repentance we leave the kingdom of sin and death to live in the Kingdom of Light.

How does baptism fit into all of this? Baptism is part of the physical action that we do to demonstrate our surrender to Jesus Christ. Malcolm Smith had this to say about baptism:

“But in baptism, we are passive; it is something we submit to;it is a rite that is done to us by another. It is the dynamic action of faith by which we helplessly present ourselves to the Holy Spirit for God’s acceptance through the cross and resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (The Lost Secret of the New Covenant; pg. 149)

Baptism is something that we submit to in faith as we helplessly put ourselves in a position to receive the mercy of God. The apostle Paul wrote; Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? (Romans 6:3; NLT) In baptism we lay aside our agendas and wills and die to self in order to become the people God created us to be. That is what it means to surrender.

Surrendering demands that we change the way we live. How did the 3,000 new Christians respond after they surrendered their lives to Christ Jesus? According to Acts 2:42ff. they demonstrated their surrender to Jesus by changing their lives. Surrendering isn’t a one time event, it is the constant aligning our lives to God’s will. If our lives are not changing then we have not surrendered our lives to Jesus.

But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:20-24; NLT).

Changing the way we live is an essential part of surrendering to Jesus. It is the part of surrender that we have to do each day for the rest of our lives.

Here is the truth I want you take away today: Wholeness is the result of surrendering our lives to Jesus. We will never be the people God created us to be until we surrender the broken pieces of our lives to Jesus. He can take the broken pieces of our lives and create a masterpiece. All we need to do is give Him a chance.