- All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
- Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
- All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.
- All to Jesus I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.
- All to Jesus I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.
- All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
Oh, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!
--Judson W. VanDeVenter, "I Surrender All", 1896
Recently, I was horrified to discover that I've been harboring a cache of resentment and unforgiveness in my soul. It's far more extensive than I imagined, and it's been festering and affecting my daily thoughts more than I realized for the past year or so. Not an easy thing to admit. And in all my fallen nature, I've been clutching and protecting it like Gollum and his Precious.
I went to the prayer chapel here at OMS earlier this afternoon to pray for a bit, and found myself asking God for help to let this bitterness go. I was perplexed to find Him silent. I had repented for being so unforgiving for so long, and knew I would have to change my thought patterns and let the resentment go. "Lord, help me with this colossal effort of disciplining my mind to focus on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy." Still nothing.
Then it suddenly hit me that it had nothing to do with acts of the will or monumental efforts. It had everything to do with total surrender to Jesus. I couldn't believe it, but I was still trying to maintain control and think I could solve my problem on my own. I realized I need to ask Jesus not only what He wants me to do each day, but what He wants me to think each day. I realized that instead of trying to whip my mind into submission, I need to hand my thoughts over to the Lord in submission.
So I gave up. I told Jesus I wanted to surrender my thoughts to Him, and asked Him to fill me with joy instead of resentment. I asked Him to help me constantly focus on the Spirit every minute of every day. Then the words to the hymn "I Surrender All" came to my mind. I quietly sang out the refrain a couple of times, and then said Amen.
When I stood up and looked around, I realized that I used to have a knot in my stomach, but it was gone. I actually never noticed it was there until today when it disappeared. I started thinking about forgiveness and why God makes such a big deal out of it in the Bible. It's because when we go around clutching our little parcels of resentment and hurt, it's bad for us. God makes rules because He knows better than we do what's good for us. When we substitute our judgment for His, we make a deadly mistake.
'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?''The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."’
--Mark 12:28(b)-30 (NIV84)
On Saturday, Avi (my ten-year-old son) suddenly remarked "I'm so excited for tomorrow!" At first I genuinely had no idea what he could be excited about, and then I remembered that the next day was Mother's Day. I wondered whether he could truly be anticipating Mother's Day, so I asked him what he was excited about, half-expecting him to say there was going to be an Adventure Time marathon on Cartoon Network. Exasperated, he reminded me: "Tomorrow's Mother's Day!"
I don't know how it is that my ten-year-old boy still loves to do nice things for me. He genuinely looks forward to Mother's Day every year and always concerns himself with whether I'm spending the day relaxing and enjoying myself. I always look forward to extra hugs and affection, not out of obligation, but out of real love. Yesterday afternoon I started cleaning a few leftovers out of the refrigerator and he came over and told me I needed to stop it. "You always work, work, work. You should just sit down and relax today." I relented, and he smiled and sat down with me.
Do we delight in loving God this way? Or is it a grudging show of honor, out of obligation? And before you answer that, you owe it to yourself to really think and answer honestly. The commandment that Jesus highlights as most important (originally set out in Deuteronomy 6:4) sets an all-consuming standard. To love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength? I would have nothing left. I would be completely spent, exhausted from all that love.
"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"
--Psalm 42:1-2
Do we wait impatiently for prayer times, anxious to steal away and spend time with the most consuming love of our lives? Are we desperate for God?
God doesn't want our stingy affection. He doesn't want us to serve Him out of guilt, out of self-seeking motives, or out of fear. He doesn't want our leftover time, money, or love. "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." (Deuteronomy 4:24 NIV). He wants the first of it, the next part, and all the rest too. Love for Him should and will progressively consume us, and we will only be satisfied by spending more and more time with Him and by doing things that delight Him. We do these things not to earn His favor, but because our love for Him simply compels us. We obey Him and serve Him not out of obligation but because we are conformed more to His likeness as we are consumed by our ravenous, desperate love for Him. We are changed until nothing else matters except God.
Is this obsession? Well, yes. But this is how we were created. God hard-wired us to be obsessed with Him, "that we might be for the praise of His glory," in order to bring the nations to Christ. Ephesians 1:12, Matthew 28:19-20. He devised the plan and then created us with a yearning to fulfill it. I follow His plan, not because it is perfect, but because I love God so much that it's an obsession, and I can't imagine doing anything else.
In His Service,
Stephanie
"In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory." (Ephesians 1:11-12, NIV)
I've had moments where I've thought to myself, "What's with all this praising? Why does God command us to praise and worship Him all the time? Isn't He kind of an egomaniac?" But at the same time, I've had moments of sublime, profound joy during worship and at times of praising God. I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt sure that the questions I had were the whisperings of the enemy, because they sounded just like doubts planted by one who would try to place himself above the Almighty. I knew what the right answer was, I just hadn't worked out why.
Well, I've finally worked it out, at least to my own satisfaction, with the help of a book and the Holy Spirit, so I'm sharing in this blog entry. Praise the Lord!
The rules that apply to people don't apply to God, because God is God and we're not. I know, sounds ridiculous, right? But take a minute and really absorb that sentence if you haven't, and a lot of other significant truths will start to flow out that will be profound.
Pride is a sin for people, and one of the reasons is that whatever we're being proud about is a lie. Pride is thinking highly of yourself when it's not warranted. "I don't need help, I can do this all on my own," or, "I'm smarter than anyone I know," or, "I'm the most good-looking person in the room." None of those things is true.
However, God really is perfect. He doesn't have to be humble about anything, because to be humble would be not only untrue (which is impossible for God), but it would be idolatry. Nothing is better or more powerful or more truthful or more loving, or...(you get the idea) than God. He's not boasting, He's just being God.
So what do we like to do when we find something great, even when it's an imperfect great thing? In the words of C.S. Lewis, "[W]e delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms). Think about something as minor as a delicious piece of cheesecake, for example. "Oh, this is so good! I've never had anything this great! You have to try it! Here, have a bite."
Unfortunately, you might be reading this and thinking you don't like cheesecake. Or cheesecake might be pretty good but not the best thing you can think of. That's because no matter what we praise that's been made by people, it's not going to be perfect. That's why praising God is so much better. Nobody can disagree about Him. He really is the best. Perfect, in fact. All the time.
Here's the point: God made us. He could have wired us any way He wanted. He hard-wired us to derive pleasure from praising the things we love, and to derive perfect pleasure from praising Him who is perfect. We were created "for the praise of His glory," and just to make it all even better, He set it up so we would be soul-satisfied by praising His glory, because He loves us.
It's perfect. Don't you agree?
In His service,
Stephanie
"'Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.' His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ."
--Acts 5:38-42
Today at church the sermon was about getting outside our comfort zones. It made me start thinking about a class I went to last summer where a seminary student intern we had on staff made the point that when we share the "good news," it has to be good, and it has to be news.
Somehow I connected these two thoughts today, and I realized we'll never really have news, not good enough to be front-page material anyway, if we fail to abandon our comfy chairs and our fuzzy slippers and follow the direction of the Spirit regardless of where it takes us. We're not here to be comfortable. We're not here to watch TV and play Angry Birds. We're here to share the good news about what Jesus has done for us with everyone we possibly can. Anything less is disobedience by inertia.
What has God done in your life lately that would qualify as a personal testimony to the the redeeming power of Jesus' death and resurrection? If you can't think of anything, you're too comfortable. You're not living. God has no opportunities to do amazing things in your life because you're not willing to be uncomfortable and then trust Him to show up. "I was saved and then I went home and sat in my living room for the next 10 years" is neither news, nor is it good. "I was saved, and then I was never the same again. Let me tell you about it." That sounds like the start of some stop-the-presses, dramatic news that deserves to be told.
I've heard people ask, "What do you want to be doing when Jesus comes back?" I've thought about that question dozens of times, until tonight, when I threw it out the window and decided the real question is: "What do you want to be doing now, while Jesus is watching your every move from His seat at the right hand of the Father in heaven?" Do you want to be a newsmaker? Or would you rather sit in your chair at home and watch the news other people are making instead?
In His service,
Stephanie
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.... If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
--1 Cor. 12:16, 26-27 (NIV)
There are certain types of disorders where a person's immune system, instead of attacking viruses and bacteria and the like, malfunctions and starts attacking the body's own tissues instead. Some of these disorders can be so severe that they can lead to death if untreated, with the body slowly self-destructing.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul goes on at length developing the analogy of the body of Christ to the human body. He makes the point that, as in the human body where each organ, gland and system has a particular function, each of us has a particular role in the body of Christ, whether it's prophecy, administration, pastoring, or something else. If part of the body of Christ gives up and goes home, we fail. If part of the human body gives up, we die (or at least become seriously sick).
But what if we start acting like a renegade immune system in the human body example above? What if we in the body of Christ put on our armor of God every day, but instead of going out and fighting against the real enemy, we get confused start attacking each other? Gossip, dissension, stubbornness, disrespect. There's nothing the enemy would rather see. If we waste our energy and time fighting among ourselves, the enemy has us doing his job for him. He doesn't have to work at doing damage to God's children, we're handling that quite well on our own. And all the time we spend fighting the wrong enemy is time taken away from working for our King.
Tomorrow, when you put on your armor and get ready for a day of battle, spend a moment asking for help from the Spirit to build up the unity of the body of Christ instead of fighting other parts of the body and tearing it down. Pray for protection for the body of Christ.
In His service,
Stephanie
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." --John 1:12-13 (NIV)
Do we really behave every day as children of God?
I've been struck at odd times lately that if we all treated God as head of the family instead of an ethereal father, we might do things a bit differently. We usually think about God as if He's far, far away, but He's always right here with us. He's here on the couch with me as I type this. He's there where you are reading this. He's everywhere, in fact.
Does He really seem real to us? What if I prayed to Him as if He were sitting right across from me on the fireplace hearth instead of away in the heavens?
If we had a loving, always-available, perfect father who longed to spend time with us every day, would we ever go days, weeks, months, or even years treating him the way we sometimes treat God? Let's face it. We ignore Him. We're ungrateful. We constantly ask for things we don't really need. And we complain when He gives us the things He knows we should have. I think we do the things we do because sometimes it's hard to think of God as our Dad, and it's hard to think of ourselves as His kids.
We're in a family. Our siblings are our brothers and sisters in the Church. The head of the household is God. We might elbow each other at the dinner table from time to time, but otherwise this is the best family in the universe. Rejoice and have a heart-to-heart talk with Dad.
In His service,
Stephanie
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
--Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)
Our team retreat has been rescheduled to Friday, so my thoughts have returned to composing a succinct statement of my ministry burden or passion.
First, I don't really even like calling it a burden, because it makes my calling sound like drudgery, like ankle weights. I picture myself hauling a ball-and-chain through a mud bog. But when I think about my calling, I feel the opposite sensation. I feel like I'm jumping up and down on a pogo stick. Anyone who's attended one of the orientation weeks I've facilitated could probably say I seem like I'm jumping up and down on a pogo stick for most of the week. I have so much fun (and coffee) I'm full of enthusiasm and energy (and caffeine). So I think I'd really rather call it a ministry pogo stick.
So I can say that if I could state my calling, or my passion, or my pogo stick in terms of my favorite questions to ask people, it would come out something like this:
"What do you think God is trying to teach you/show you in this situation?"
or
"How is God working on you right now?"
These questions have tons of variations and always lead to other questions, but these are really the main areas that I just love to talk about/read about/think about/pray about, etc.
What these two questions really lead to is how God is pushing the person (almost always a woman, so we'll say it's a "she") to become a little more like the person God wants her to be in whatever area He's working on--right? So if there's some way I can ask a question or point to a certain passage of the Bible or pray for the person, in order to help the person through the process of growth, which is almost always painful (let's be honest), that's worth everything. That is really something worth giving my life for.
So I think what I really get excited about is helping other Christians in the process of maturing, obeying, and determining God's calling and plan for their lives.
Reading that makes me feel like I'm jumping up and down on a pogo stick.
In His service,
Stephanie
