Surrender Plus Focus Equals Life!

As a follower of Christ, you and I cannot afford to run out of spiritual power. Many, many ‘ministers of the Gospel’ (vocational or not) have this experience regularly, and turn to our Lord for renewal. (I fear, however, from what I observe, that many are operating on their own power in the first place, and don’t even realize it. But that is a different subject).

Recently the ‘stresses of life’ combined with the ‘busyness of life’ to obscure my judgment and cause me to squeeze out my time with the Lord. My bad. Very bad. By Thursday I was in trouble and in need of much wallowing in the Word!

As I read the Word and considered the uncertainties of life – the health of many, the expectations of more, the wants of yet more – two verses kept resonating. One a time:

“If you try to keep your life for yourself you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake . . . you will find true life.” – Mark 8:35.

First of all, we are bought with a price, and are called to be God’s slave. Instead, most of us spend our time trying to build our earthly life into a haven. We are not home! Therefore, spending so much time and energy fixing up our ‘home’ is a profound waste of God’s precious power and purpose. I’m not saying to take a vow of earthly hell, I’m just reminded that my focus is to be up and beyond, as on His purposes and promises. God used my 14-year-old daughter Caryn to remind me of this on Friday when she remarked that her Bible reading has been focused on Revelation of late, and she remarked extensively on the fact that we are not home.

Second, whenever we try to keep our life for ourselves, we are playing God. This is sin. This idolatry, with the man in the mirror as the idol! We think, ‘This one just has to live,’ or, ‘I have to get that job,’ or ‘He or she just has to see it my way.’ No. The patient may die, you may be out off work, and I may never be agreed with (or my blog read :) ). And God will not be caught off guard by any of it! It’s not ‘our life;’ it’s His.

Third, to give up our life is to accept His, which means accepting His purpose and power. We have NO power to make happen what we merely want to make happen, but we have GREAT POWER TO DO WHAT HE TELLS US TO DO.

Thus, taking on His purpose – in every detail of life – is the way to peace and joy, which is really what we are all selfishly seeking anyway. Our loving Father desires to give good gifts to His children. If we’ll just stop trying to run our own lives, at the point of surrender that we arrive there, we’ll begin to move into His purpose, power and peace.

Next verse:

”You will keep in perfect peace Him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.”
– Isaiah 26:3

The problem is always our thinking. Thinking right leads to feeling right leads to acting right. There’s your psychology degree. How to think right? The mind of Christ, to the extent He chose to give it to us, is in the Word. So the question to ask when faced with any question is, “What does the Word of God say that informs us how to (deal with, answer, etc.) X.’

“whose mind is steadfast” means one whose mind is on God and the things of God and the Word of God! When I am failing, I am not focusing well. When I am fearing, attacking, etc., I am not focusing well.

One “whose mind is steadfast” trusts God. If your mind wanders for a long, your trust wandered. A brief wandering can be distraction – but if you walk with the Spirit He will draw you back. But many do not walk with the Spirit, do not recognize His calling, and wander far, far away.

The older I get, the simpler (in terms of complexity, not necessarily difficulty of execution) walking with Christ becomes.

That’s my rant for the day. Think right!