Surrender!

I know so much about surrender that I could literally write a book about it. But as I read this in the book Ransomed Heart, I realized there is no way I could describe it as beautiful as this one. 

SURRENDER BY RANSOMED HEART

The time has come for us to quit playing chess with God over our lives. We cannot win, but we can delay the victory, dragging on the pain of grasping and the poison of possessing. You see, there are two kinds of losses in life. The first is shared by all mankind—the losses that come to us. Call them what you will—accidents, fate, acts of God. The point is that we have no control over them. We do not determine when, where, what, or even how. There is no predicting these losses; they happen to us. We choose only how we respond. The second kind is known only to the pilgrim. They are losses that we choose. A chosen loss is different from repentance, when we give up something that was never ours to have. With a chosen loss, we place on the altar something very dear to us, something innocent, whose only danger is in its goodness, that we might come to love it too much. It is the act of consecration, where little by little or all at once, we give over our lives to the only One who can truly keep them.

Spiritual surrender is not resignation. It is not choosing to care no longer. Nor is it Eastern mysticism, an attempt to get beyond the suffering of this life by going completely numb. As my dear friend Jan describes, "It is surrender with desire, or in desire." Desire is still present, felt, welcomed even. But the will to secure is made subject to the divine will in an act of abandoned trust. Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Courtesy of:

 http://ransomedheart.com

LEARN TO GROW SPIRITUALLY IN HIM IN SPITE OF OTHERS

DEVOTION

Jeremiah 15:10.

Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

Some people call Jeremiah crying baby, I guess it is the lack of understanding what it means to be truly called by God. While He is training you there is also a call in your soul to leave the self behind. You do not leave the self behind without humiliation to your soul and the pain of standing alone. You also have to learn to wait for God on God and in God. There is desolation in the soul that is felt on the outside.

When He is having His way with your soul in order to use you as an empty vessel, you will groan under the heavy burden of carrying His Word out there so other people might be revived. You groan for the spiritual blindness of the people around you, in the Church and in the world. Even though you experience Him up close and personal but the time span He talks to you is so far in between. We have examples in the Bible, people like David we can see that at times, in his psalms, he was going on with no spiritual strength at all. The same situation with Paul, God had to send His angels on three occasions to comfort him. Therefore, it is hard to hang onto what you know for sure is His faithfulness to you, His love and grace that has been innumerable while the sorrow of your mind being tried, your heart being pierced, and you are trying to avoid Satan’s fiery darts all at the same time.

When you think about how young Jeremiah was, his lack of experience and the weight of his mission on his shoulders, it makes sense that he had a hard time. Through the process, while God was using Him to help and warn his people, He also refined this young man. The hatred Jeremiah had to endure from his people, the persecution, trials and hardships; all would take its toll on a weary soul. I have no doubt that at times, Jeremiah wished he could convince his people that he was telling the truth and he would have killed two birds with the same stone. First they would change their ways and they would stop hating him for disturbing their comfort zone. But, such is this life. When you are walking close with God, you have to come to a point where you know that you know what you know and that is sufficient to continue in spite of how other people feel about you. Whether you are able to convince others so they would join you in walking in the light is not the priority. Nor being vindicated in this life. You have to know for yourself that God already knew the outcome and using you in this manner serve a purpose that is higher that what you can comprehend.

While Jeremiah was feeling overwhelmed by what his ministry had brought his way, God kept applying pressure on Jeremiah and his people. God cares how we answer to Him when we get overwhelmed by our burden. The challenge for us is to remain in the Spirit so we do not have to be crushed in our soul because in our weakness, He is strong. So we learn to depend on Him for our need moment by moment.

PRAY

My God and my Savior, teach us to always find our strength in you and leave behind the need to please others and be accepted by them. You Yourself was misunderstood, rejected, ridiculed, tortured and killed. All of it was for our own good. So teach us to learn to live in this world and make it solely about you like You did with Your Father.

In His Love & Service, 
M. J 

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