success

Consecrated…

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Day 3…

As I read through today’s Draw The Circle devotional, Mark Batterson talked about consecration. Consecration, as he put it, is death of self. It is a lifelong journey of surrender in total dedication to God. It is the process of not holding anything back from God.

As Batterson puts it:

“I know there is a fear that if we give more of ourselves to God, there will be less of us less, but it’s the exact opposite. It’s not until we die to ourself that we truly come alive. The more we give to God, the more we have and the more we become. It’s only in losing our lives that we truly find them.”

He tells of great men God like Dwight L. Moody and Jonathan Edwards who, when fully dedicated to the Lord, did amazing things for God during their lives. He tells the story found in Joshua where the Lord tells the Israelites to “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” (Joshua 3:5) They did; and the Lord did: He parted the Jordan River and crossed on dry ground.

But I found myself bristling against some of what he said. For instance, the very last sentence of today’s devotional reads:

“If we give more of ourselves to God, God will give more of Himself to us.”

God gave all of Himself when He gave His one and only son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) How much more can He give!?! It also sounds like a formula for performance. The more we give = the more we get. There’s something about that which is true. But there’s something that’s not quite right, too.

What about those that struggle? You and I have issues. Face it. We do. We all are sinners. Each day. Every day. I am desperately in need of God and His grace. With the formula above, I could easily believe that if I fail at giving God my all today, or if I give something to him one day in complete surrender and then take it back the next day, I’m a complete loser and a total failure. There are thousands of folks walking around believing that today. Thousands.

Because Jesus succeeded, we can fail.
Because Jesus surrendered, I can fall short in my surrender and not feel like a loser.
Because Jesus won, I’m free to lose.

When I fully grasp the freedom found in Jesus and what was accomplished on the Cross, I am humbly compelled to live my live wholly and completely for God. It’s isn’t a matter of me willingly surrendering. It’s not a matter of the will. It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus… and surrender just happens.

Yes, it is still a process. But, for me, it is not a process of surrender, it is a process of fully realizing the love God has for me in Christ Jesus. As I fully comprehend this complete, satisfying, all-encompassing love that heals all wounds and fills all voids, I find myself more and more completely consumed by His love… and more and more completely in love with Him.

I become more and more completely His. If that’s being consecrated, then so be it.

Significant?

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We all want to do something in our lives that is significant. We all want our lives to count for something. For some, this desire goes to a different level, and they want to be famous. For others, significance comes in the form of being a good parent.

For me, I wonder sometimes if my desire to live a life of significance is a matter of my pride coming to the forefront. I have to ask myself questions such as:

1) Would I be content living a life where I wouldn’t be recognized or respected?
2) Would I be content living a life where my only contribution to ministry in this world would be as an intercessor, behind the scenes?
3) Is my desire to be “significant” about me feeling good about myself or about helping others?

Certainly these aren’t the only questions to ask, but they are the first to come to mind. My answers to those questions and those similar aren’t glowing, to say the least. But I’ve come to realize a few things about our God:

1) I am profoundly significant to God. You and I are priceless in the eyes of the Father. We are worth the price of His Son, Jesus, dying for each of us in order to enjoy an intimate relationship with us, both here and now, and for eternity. Because Jesus is the epitome of significance, I am free to be insignificant by the world’s definition.

2) When it comes to being significant, valuable, or loved by God, my performance doesn’t matter. Whether I fail or succeed, I am loved, valuable, and significant. My value or significance to God is not determined by what I do, but by Whose I am. I am free to fail because Jesus succeeded.

3) God not only loves me, He likes me. He knows my flaws, baggage, and hang-ups. He knows my pet-peeves, my idiosyncrasies, and nervous habits. He knows the secrets from my past and my secret thoughts from yesterday. And He still likes me! He knit me together in my mother’s womb and knows every thought that crosses my mind. He knows how I am made… because He made me! Because He likes me (and of course, loves me), I am freed from living to please people. I am freed from always thinking about what other people think of me. I am content to be loved by God. I am content to be liked by God. Because Jesus was and is perfect, I am free to be imperfect. I am also free to allow others to be imperfect. (I’m still working on that one)

Living a life of significance is something I desire. It’s something that I think we all desire. But growing up in a performance-based culture has skewed our definition of significance.

We are significant not by what we do, but by Whose we are.

Excellence, Bliss, and Success…

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“Be all that you can be.” That is (or was) the advertising slogan for one of the branches our armed services. You’ve seen the commercials. But have you heard that advertising slogan repeated on Sunday mornings in pulpits? I’ll bet you have.

The Christian life is sometimes portrayed in a similar vein, where you can be all that God wants you to be and accomplish all you are designed and destined to accomplish. The Christian life is sometimes represented as some kind of self-improvement program or the pathway to moral excellence, marital bliss, successful child-rearing, or professional and financial windfall. Maybe it’s done subtly and by accident, but in many cases, that is the impression given to not only the watching world, but those within the church.

Coupled with that impression is the implication that by trying harder, re-doubling your efforts, focusing more, re-prioritizing, “stepping up to the plate”, or “going to battle” will result in the excellence, bliss, and success you’re aiming for.

Those are the impressions I have after 18 years of “trying” to be a Christian. But recently, I’ve had to ask the question, “Where is the Good News in that? In the pursuit of holiness, which will presumably result in excellence, success, and bliss, where do I find good news?”

I had to start at the beginning. Not Genesis 1:1, the beginning of the Bible, but John 3:16, the essence of the Gospel. “For God so loved _______…” Fill in your name here. For God so loved you and me that He sent his only Son so that we wouldn’t perish, but instead experience eternal life. That’s not just life after death, but REAL life BEFORE death! And that’s no ordinary love, but an extraordinary kind of love that accepts you and me right where we are. We don’t have to strive. We don’t have to try to improve. We don’t have to achieve.

Living with this freedom doesn’t make me lazy spiritually, or give me a license to live any way I please. On the contrary, it frees me to live for God utterly and completely. I don’t have to; I want to! It just happens.

The excellence, bliss, and success will come, but it may not look like we picture it. Instead, it will be real excellence, real bliss, and real success, and it will come as a (super)natural outpouring of the freedom found in Christ. It also may come because of, in spite of, or in the form of failure, turmoil and tragedy, and defeat and suffering.

“For God so loved…” It’s the kind of love that can be trusted… trusted with every fabric of my being. I can trust Him to work for my good, no matter what. It’s a kind of love that brings real freedom to let go. I can trust and let go because He’s got this covered and He’s got my back.

I am a child of God, with Christ living in me, and I live in the unshakeable Kingdom of God.

That’s Good News!