Tag: Surrender
When we get in the way of what God is doing, we get in step with the downstairs agenda. We become a blunt tool in the hands of the enemy.
Power plus the Holy Spirit plus conviction: these are the sure identifiers of adoption. If we are missing these crucial factors, are we really in Christ? Or perhaps, are we inoculated? Like any vaccine, we’ve received just enough gospel to believe we’ve got it, but we’ve never truly allowed it to storm our frame and bend our will. We have yet to give ourselves over to the cause completely. We settle for some lesser, fraudulent version of Christ-following; where we keep our old life and options open.
To put this verse into modern terms, God the Father just handed over His keys, His wallet and His iPhone to His only Son. Not just to a station wagon, a rental house and a ten thousand dollar credit line, but to the UNIVERSE. God gave Jesus the authority He required to give eternal life; but we recognize the temptation involved in wearing such authority even for a little while.
Friends, we are just passing through. We don’t observe Sabbath and Jubilee years any longer, we’ve misplaced these incredible traditions of trust and grace. We must instead remind ourselves over and over again; this world is not our home. We are tenants and everything we have is only on loan for a little while. The sooner we learn this the less tightly we’ll hold to everything temporal: position, possessions, opinions and grudges.
Joseph’s part in the nativity narrative is marked again and again by obedience.
Jesus and the psalmist invite us to worship with all our guts, holding nothing back.