Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Beware The Temptation To Trade What Is Best To Merely Get What Is Good!

My Utmost For His Highest

I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. —John 17:4

{CHAMBERS}  “True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will— and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person’s will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.[…]  It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will— “Come to Me.” And it is a voluntary coming.[…] “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, “If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me.” And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Philippians 4:19).[…]  Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being “united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him. And after you surrender— then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.”

{ELGIN}  One of the dangers that we face as we travel through this life is the danger of wanting what is good and being willing to “trade” what is best to get it.  Where has God placed you to fulfill His purpose for you?  (Ephesians 2:10) “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  Surrender means that you stop resisting.  You hands are held high, your heart is yielded.  Your cry is “Have your own way Lord.  Have your own way.  You are the potter and I am the clay.  Mold me and make me after your will.  While I am waiting, yielded and still.”  But .. all too often we want to be the captain of our destiny.  The good .. the reasonable … rises up in our hearts .. the question is raised .. why can’t I be like everyone else .. why won’t He just let me be like everyone else.  There is the possibility of a mutiny in your heart.  Oh friend, don’t you see that what you are experiencing is natural, predictable.  It’s the battle between the flesh and the Spirit.  In Psalm 51, David wrote  … “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;  you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;  a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” 

Don’t expect the world to praise you for choosing God over everything else.  In fact, they may find opportunity to condemn you for it.  Certainly there are those who say that “God told them”, when in fact, they are at the helm of their lives.  They use God as a banner, but they are not devoted to Him, only themselves.  Time will tell.   Like the wheat and the tares, it is often hard to distinguish, until it is time to bear fruit.  I often used the analogy of a mango tree when I preached in Haiti.  You may call yourself a mango tree, but if your branches do not bear mangos but oranges instead, you are not a mango tree.  In the same way, if you say you are called by God but there is no Spiritual fruit on your branches, then you are not called by God.  I am not speaking about counting the number of souls saved through your work as proof, although that may certainly be some of the fruit.  Do people see Jesus in you?  Do you bear witness to God and give Him glory or do you seek affirmation from men.  (John 12:43) “they loved human praise more than praise from God”

So, all that said, what is the point.  As Christians, the life we are to live is described best in Galatians 2:20.  “ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  Living by faith … going when He says go .. doing when He says do … in this life of faith the way is steep and rocky.  It will exhaust you if you try to go it alone, in your own strength, under your own will-power.  Your new life requires total dependence upon the One who called you to it.  The minute you try to do it yourself, try to make a course change, you will feel the weight that only God can lift.  That should be a reminder that you do all things through and only through Christ Who gives you supernatural strength, born out of your faith in Him and surrender to Him.  Believe me, I know.

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