That's why we love rules so much. That's why the Pharisees had so many. Rules are easy. Well, they're a lot more easy than loving. I can discipline and control my actions and appearance through rules. If you make x amount, give God ten percent, always rounding up in His favor when you don't have the exact change, and go on. The rest is yours to do what you want with. If someone is in need and meets certain qualifications, help them. If they are unwilling to help themselves or if time after time they refuse to listen and apply the truth or respond how they should, cut them loose. Make sure you look the part, whatever that means, and your dress is appropriate and identifies you as one who is spiritual. Your hands are clean, your food is healthy, your entertainment is controlled and made up of good, clean fun, your behavior and appearance and life is micromanaged so that no one can say there's evil in your life or activities and everyone can see that you are a good person. You volunteer, you donate, you follow the rules. To be honest, it sounds pretty difficult and miserable, but it is easier than loving God completely and treating others as though they are as significant and as valuable as you are, as though their relationship with God, their comfort, safety, ease, pleasure, resources and life are just as important to us as our own, perhaps more so.
I can determine that I will read devotions and scriptures an hour every day, but I can't always make myself want to. I can determine that I will pray and meditate for a certain amount of time and on a certain schedule, but I can't make myself want to spend time with Daddy and just be in His presence. I can determine to be kind and polite and smile at people and say nice things to them, but I can't keep myself from despising them in my heart. I can give of my resources to those in need, but I can't keep myself from examining with my judgment if I need it more or keep myself from being afraid that if I give there won't be enough...enough for me to do what I want, to have fun, or comfort, or security. If I'm honest, I could never contemplate giving to the point where my own needs are endangered. I can determine and discipline my life to act a certain way and look a certain way, but I can not make myself be a certain way. I can make myself act like I love you, but I can not make myself love you.
Suddenly love God and love others seems so much more difficult that keeping all the rules, even though I could never do that either. Jesus loved doing that, commanding the impossible. Love God. Love others. They're right up there with go and sin no more. You mean go and don't sin for the next five minutes right? Sin no more....today. Maybe, if I go straight to bed I can pull that one off. Go and sin no more. Period. You mean ever? You mean don't sin, don't be, think, feel, act or respond in any way that is short of perfect love for God and obedience to Him? Where's that list of rules again? Let me see how many of them I can manage to check off.
That's the problem. We hear the command, we know it's right, we know it's impossible, and then we set about trying to do it. We determine in our will and strength to obey God and love Him and others. We try to discipline our lives so that we can go and sin no mare. And we lose sight of the point. The point is we never could do it right, we still can't, and we need Jesus as much today as a Christian as we did yesterday as a heathen. We are still relying on Him...His work, His power, His Spirit, His grace to do for us, in us, and through us, what we could never, ever, not for one day, do on our own, namely love like He loves. And we aren't expected to suddenly start doing it. The moment we try to do it ourselves, we are forgetting that we are to put self down and rely totally and completely on Jesus. We are to live and breathe and be completely dependent upon Him.
Have you ever heard of the story of Jesus's friend Lazarus? This is the friend of Jesus who got sick and died and then was resurrected. This was the one whose death inspired the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept. This was a man four days dead and in the tomb and stinking before the miracle.
[Jesus] cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
- John 11:43-44
Did you catch that? Jesus told a dead man to get up and walk out of the grave, and the dead man came to life and walked out of the grave. Seriously, how much of that obedience came from Lazarus?What percentage of Lazarus coming back to life do you think depended on him, his desire to obey, his determination, his anything? None. He was dead. He couldn't even want to obey, much less act on it. His life, every breath, and his ability to rise up and walk from the stink in obedience to Jesus, was totally, completely, 100% reliant upon and a result of the person and power of Jesus. Not 1% of it was Lazarus. Not .01%.
When we realize we're Lazarus and that our very life is 100%a result of and reliant upon the person and power of Jesus, then He is in control, and His grace operates in our life enabling us to love God, love others,to deny self and stay in the will of Daddy. But when we start thinking that it's somehow up to us, that Jesus needs our 10% or even .01% to bring about the miracle, we get in the way, negate His grace and fail miserably. Because we can not bring our self into the mix and deny self at the same time. We can not rely on Jesus to do the work and do it ourselves. We can go and sin no more because it is Jesus in us who is living and breathing and doing and responding without sinning. When we start trying to do it, we find very quickly that we can't. We couldn't yesterday. We still can't today, and we won't be able to tomorrow. Not us. But us surrendered to Jesus, letting the Spirit completely lead, guide and direct us, can love as He loves, can serve and lay down self as He served and laid down His life, and can completely and wholly submit to the will of Daddy, like He did.
So today, let us give ourselves in surrender to Him. Let us do it over and over, as necessary. Each time we realize that we have reached out to take our will and lives back from Him or when we realize that we are throwing any of ourselves into the mix let us stop and remember that we are His and it is 100% Him that makes it possible. It's not by our might, or our strength, or our power, but by His Spirit that we can walk free, that we can love, that we can walk from the stink of who we were and that we can even live at all.
This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.
Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment