Skip to main content

All to Jesus

Recently, I was listening to a pastor speak about worship and he made the statement, "I never sing anything I don't mean." That statement came back to me with force this morning. Of course, being Palm Sunday, we are singing many songs about the cross. How about this line: "I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. I'll believe whatever the cost." Just let that sink in for a minute....whatever the cost...hmmmm. How about this old favorite invitation hymn: "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give." Everything? No matter the cost? Just how far am I willing to take this, anyway?

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1

A living sacrifice.... Sacrifices in the scripture usually involved the loss of life. Dictionary.com says a sacrifice is "The surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered higher...". Another favorite song: "Take my life, lead me Lord.."

So what does total surrender REALLY look like? I'm thinking it's more than just Church on Sunday. So I ask myself the hard questions
* What if God calls me to another place?
* What if God asked me to sell all I have?
* what if God calls me to lay down my life?

Or maybe He just wants me to swallow my pride and witness to my waiter or give up one evening a week for outreach...

I don't really know how to bring this to a close because I am still doing the self examination. But am I really ready to give up whatever He asks no matter the cost? To surrender all? To let Him take my life and make me a living sacrifice?

What I do know is this: This is exactly what He did for me. He left a home behind that I cannot even imagine. He gave up all He had in Heaven, moved to another place, witnessed to his waiter (and hundreds more), and then laid down his life.

In Philippians 3:10, Paul says he wants to know Christ so much that he wants to share His suffering and become like Him in His death. Why? Because his eye is on the prize. In verse 14, he says His prize is heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Oh, that I would have the passion to know Christ and the willingness to surrender that Paul had. Until then, I am a work in progress. Oh, wait, another song: "He's still workin on me..to make me what I ought a be..." LaLaLa....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leaving Your Nets

Matthew 4:20 "AT ONCE they left their nets and followed Him (Jesus)."  Matthew 4:20 records the response of Peter and Andrew to the call of Jesus to be his disciples. They literally walked off the job and into ministry. We have the advantage of viewing this story with hindsight and the scripture, but Peter and Andrew were in the moment... Jesus was a hometown boy, a carpenter. He hadn't really started his ministry, yet. Surely he had been preaching in the area and the disciples knew what kind of man he was. But still... Fishing was a major industry around the Sea of Galilee and most fisherman belonged to family owned business. Can you imagine old Zebedee's face when somebody walked in his "office" and told him Peter and Andrew had taken off with the new preacher? How do you go home and tell your wife that you walked off the job for a ministry with no pay? How do you feed your kids? Their security was gone. Their income was gone. Possibly a few r...
15 comments
Read more

Love's Pure Light

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 I have a confession.  I have been more than a little 'bah humbug' this year. I don't really know why. We are settled in our new house this year. Grandkids have come and gone and are still coming and going. It's been a beautiful, tropical Florida Christmas season. We did a great program at our church. And, yet, I'm just not feelin' it...  Until tonight. Tonight was our annual Christmas Eve candlelight service at church. It is undeniably one of my favorite services every year and is always packed. Tonight was no different.  During the weeks leading up to the holiday, our pastor has been preaching a series of sermons called "The Light of Christmas" from the first chapter of John. Our Christmas musical was also themed around the light. And tonight, I saw the light. Because I was singing with our Praise...
9 comments
Read more

Devotion to Prayer

"Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving." Colossians 4:2 Prayer has never come naturally to me. I have always felt awkward in prayer for some reason. Over the past year, I have finally come to the conclusion that in all my years as a Christian, I have never really learned how to communicate with God properly. Not that I haven't made valiant efforts. I have had beautiful prayer journals. Sections for specific days and topics. I have written out my prayers (I still believe that helps me concentrate). I've used all the acronyms and prayer plans. But in the end, I look at it all and think, "If one of my friends communicated with me this way, I would toss them out the door." Some days I feel all I do is bring my wish list to God - admirable though it may be - and ask and ask and ask. For now, I'm done with asking. Color me ecstatic when I learned our little Bible study between online Bible studies was going to be on prayer! ...
6 comments
Read more