God's Chorus

Deuteronomy 8:2, “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart.”

All around us God sings a chorus. A beautiful melody, a repeating message that is written for all but sang individually in perfect time.

Take yesterday’s post called “Bullied.”

Though Frances Frangipane via Mary Kemp, “What feels like an offense is really a door to your destiny. Consider Joseph, he suffered attempted murder, betrayal, slavery, imprisonment and abandonment, yet in all things he trusted God without reacting to the injustice. The offense in the hands of our redeeming God reveals where we are still controlled by our flesh. If you want to reach your destiny, you must become Christlike in your crisis. In a word, you must become unoffendable.”

Oswald Chambers via me to Jim and back at me, “True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our inner will — and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we will ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person’s will into surrender, and He never begs.  He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him.  And once that battle has been fought – fought well and authentically and all the way through - it never needs to be fought to that depth and agony again.”

I just simply love the beauty of God inviting Mr. Class of 1982 to Iwo Jima, to light a fire under that subconscious and the ungodly influence within my character that was causing misguided decision and false emotion. How in His perfect timing, bring it to the surface to be lovingly removed by the spiritual surgery of forgiveness, mercy, and surrender.

How many never hear the chorus God is singing for them?

The Chorus that for me, in my moment, joined by T Austin-Sparks. He began with Deuteronomy 8:2, “’Remember how the Lord your God led you ALL THE WAY in the desert these FOURTY YEARS, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart.’ … you see, it (the desert) is intensely practical… By getting yourself out of the picture! Self-will, self-interest, self-realization; that is the kingdom of Satan, and God is not going to give you His kingdom on that ground…

This is practical. I have to be quite sure that I am not in this, that some secret ambition of mine, some motive of mine, is not at work. Oh, how subtle are our hearts! You and I perhaps are ready to be utterly for the Lord. We mean well, and we mean it thoroughly. We would sing really with our hearts and with our voices at full strength, 'None of self, and all of Thee,' and we would mean it, and there would be no uncertainty so far as we are concerned. And yet God knows that we are all the time defeated in our very sincerity by secret motives, and nothing but a test position can prove whether we actually mean it. So He brings us to a test – to a prospect, and then a disappointment. How do we react? Is our sorrow, our pain, for the Lord or for ourselves? Are we disappointed, or is it really only the Lord for Whom we are concerned and we are not in it at all? You see what I mean – a test situation to find out after all whether it is 'None of self, and all of Thee.' We can never discover it except in practical ways along the line of very practical testings. The Lord knows it all right, but it is not enough that He knows it. You see, in order for us to come in, we have to come in intelligently and cooperatively. That is the point of every test. The Lord could do a thing with a stroke, it could happen mechanically. But we are in a moral world, and God acts towards man on moral ground. Man has a will that constitutes him a morally responsible person, and so he must exercise his will in cooperation with God.”

For me, the chance encounter, the nightmares… nothing more than a merciful God singing a chorus of invitation. An invitation to stop pandering to the ghosts of the past, and to more fully cooperate with God in sweet surrender.

And then, as if the concert from heaven is never going to stop I discover this song with Kari Jobe for the first time. The words say:

When I waited so long, when my tears were my song

With my hope nearly gone You held me God

To believe in the face of the dry, weary place

When You felt far away You held me God

Oh, there is freedom in surrender, oh I know it

Your songs have never stopped

You've been singing, always singing over me

Your words are still enough

And You're singing, always singing over me

The chaos in the cause teaching me to see Lord

The beauty in the storm so I believe

When I see through Your eyes, through the testing of time

Every cloud silver lined 'cause You're with me

Oh, there is freedom in surrender, oh I know it

your songs have never stopped

You've been singing, always singing over me

Your words are still enough

And You're singing

Give me faith

Give me strength enough to wait

To stand in faith

And listen for, listen for Your melody

Your songs have never stopped

Your songs have never stopped

After Surrender

John 17:4, "I glorify you on the earth, having accomplished the work You gave Me to do."

It was never my intent with this blog to have post that belong to someone else in their entirety. But I read this today for the first time and thought, WOW this is the exact spiritual path that I have been on. Remember the theme of this blog is "Shameless surrender in hopes that we might know Christ more." And today Oswald Chambers laid out this path of surrender in perfect detail. Enjoy!

"True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will— and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person’s will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.

Surrender for Deliverance. “Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will— “Come to Me.” And it is a voluntary coming.

Surrender for Devotion. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . . ” (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my selfto Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, “If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me.” And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and (Philippians 4:19).

Surrender for Death. “. . . another will gird you . . .” (John 21:18 ; also see John21:19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being “united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.

And after you surrender— then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God."

Resisting Death

James 4:7, "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

1 Peter 5:8-10, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you."

On my commute home yesterday I was listening to Michael Savage on the radio. Truly a talented man who can talk without a partner for two or three hours and keep an audience interested. That is really the marvel for me. As for a person, all I know is that he is a Jew by birth and perhaps spiritual on some level, but by no means a Christian. I say this not to judge, but more to set up a reason to have my heart guarded concerning what he teaches.

So in the segment that caught my attention he was being critical of people who "embrace death." That somehow they were sub-human or inferior. He further asserted his position of avoiding death and fighting it at all costs.

So this got me thinking, which for me is really nothing more than prayer and questioning of the Christ that lives inside of me. Is "Death" something to be fought? Certainly we fight it and resist it, but is it God's plan for this resistance? Is the death that Michael Savage is referring to the same death as in death, burial, and resurrection provided by taking up the cross daily? If we as individual's are called to turn the proverbial other cheek, are we as a community, or even a nation required to collectively do the same thing?

It is here that I both agree, and disagree with Michael Savage. God allows nations to exists. And in such He also allows the protection of a nation's boarders. Therefore it is a responsibility of a nation to protect it's borders, to allow for the individual within those boarders to have certain liberties. Likewise states have certain responsibilities to protect the liberties of people within their boarders, and this responsibility follows the subdivision of the boarders all the way down to the home. All in the protection of liberties.

Now here is where is gets almost ironic. One primary liberty that deserves protection is the liberty to choose spiritual life and death within one's self. The liberty to be a fallible human walking always in the results of original sin with the ever present choice and knowledge of good and evil. Our founding fathers would call this concept freedom of religion.

The point is this. Death has a lot of connotations. The death that we all should embrace is synonymous with surrender. It is a death of the dross within us. It is further followed by the resurrection of Christ in the place where death occurs. The death that must be fought, that must be resisted is the death brought by evil. It is a death of liberty. Oh it includes physical death as well, and a host of other dying concepts. But in the end there is a good death, and an evil death. The good death must be embrace and the evil death resisted.

Surrender, don't die, is perhaps the way to understand it all simply. In surrender death leads to life. In death there is just death and no life at all. 

On the Nature of Surrender - Jim Spivey

Luke 9:23, "And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."

http://rcdailyjournal.blogspot.com/ - 100% of today's post is a copy from Jim Spivey's blog. When I asked God what He would have me write this morning He said, "nothing." I truly thought it would be nothing until I read the following. Then I knew what I was suppose to post. This is the nature of surrender, and I could not have said it better.

"So many times during every single day I get asked, “What does it really mean to surrender to God?  I think I’ve surrendered, but I don’t know what it looks like, really.”  So, here goes nothing:

“If we are truly surrendered to God, we will never be aware of our own efforts to become or remain surrendered.  Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender.  Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it.  In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely surrendered Himself to us.  In our surrender, we give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us — totally, unconditionally, and without reservation.  The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.  While living in it, the thinking about it, questioning it, pondering the possibility of it would all seem nonsensical.”

                                                                                                    -- Oswald Chambers

In other words, if you have to ask about it – how, why, or wherefore? - don’t bother.  No human intellectual answer will ever suffice. 
It’s a flowing, natural response to a supernatural “intrusion,” not a fabricated show to look good or avoid “exclusion.”
This is why this sentence flowed out of me last week:

“God's Love is self-revealing (you won't have to ‘look for’ Him, He will just ‘show up’) and self-animating (you won't have to ‘wonder what to do,’ it will be self-evident), after you complete your self-crucifying (having fully accepted the death of all of your fear-based illusions).”

                                                                                                   -- Jim Spivey

Many wrestle with the concept of surrender to God, needing to “get that right” in some way, debating about it, philosophizing about it, agonizing over it, as if it’s some kind of cosmic Rubic’s Cube they haven’t “figured out” yet.  But God is not a mind trick to be mastered.  Just keep doing your life your way, and He will show up to pull you out of it when you’ve hit the end of yourself.  Your work is not to alter, circumvent, deny, fix, or short-cut that design.  Just be ready for the help when it inevitably arrives, and be ready to let go of your way when the time comes.

Remember this penetrating statement:

“The life of self is that which causes us pain; that which is dead does not suffer.”

Your new life is not “better,” but “deader,” a “no-header” vs. “go-getter”:

“So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.  Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.  Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is.  See things from his perspective.  Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God; he is your life.”

                                                                                       -- Colossians 3:1-3 (The Message)   

And that kind of “dead” (the dying life) lets you “have” relationships without “needing” them to go a certain way (a living death).  When human relationships and “getting your way” in them are not what you’re focused on, but Jesus and what he’s up to is, you are free to “have” relationships, vs. “need” them, and joy becomes possible and natural."

What do YOU want to do?

Covered Emptiness. М Космополитес

Matthew 12:50, "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother."

In my travels I have come to a question more than once in the past few days. It is the question of, "What does God want me to do?" To be frank, it is a question I ask myself daily. But the circumstances I am hearing it from others is from the perspective of individuals searching for that purpose, activity, or job they should be doing while remaining in relationship to God.

Universally when I hear people openly searching for God in this manner I will always respond, "What is God telling you to do?"

What has prompted this post now is that more than once in a couple of days the people have said God responded with, "What do you want to do?" And like me in the past, they are interpreting that response as do whatever you would like, and God will go with you. When they say that I cannot help but laugh because I have been there, and I understand God has asked a trick question.

In 2002 faced with the demise of a life's work I went to God with the very same question. What do you want me to do? And got the very same question in response. God said, "What do you want to do?"

Why did I interpret that as Him giving me permission to be a creator? I even argued with friends and leaders about being created in His image, an image that creates. I argued that God want's children, not slaves. That all children are allowed at some point to be of society and to contribute with their creativity. I argued that we are given talents to use. I argued about the permissive will of God v. the specific will of God. And I argued that because we cannot hear or see clearly, that we have to move regardless of the command of God. All of this. All of these arguments for me were a 9+ year waste of time. None of these were the answer God was looking for when He asked, "What do you want to do?"

I am not here saying this is for everyone, because many never come to the question. But if you have asked God what do I do? Or asked it in any other form, and the response from heaven has been, What do you want to do? Let me give you the answer. The answer to what do you want to do is ALWAYS... the will of the Father.

"I want to do Your will." I want to do whatever You want me to do. I have no will of my own, You command me. That is the answer! All other answers are the long road to surrender. All other answers are direct confrontation to your abilities and the inadequacy they represent. To answer any other way is to prolong discovering the real answer of God's will and only God's will.

James 4: 13&15 "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.'...Instead you ought to say, 'IF THE LORD WILLS, we will live and also do this or that."

So you give the answer God wants to hear and what happens? Nothing. Nothing is very likely the next thing you are going to hear. For me at least, the path to obedience began with rest. It began with doing nothing at all. I had to unlearn doing. I had to unlearn my plans, my abilities, my talents, and I unlearned them by completely yielding to God, and Him saying do nothing but trust Me. I still am unlearning daily, particularly trying to unlearn predicting the results, because with God results never seem predictable.

If God is saying nothing. Then nothing is what you are supposed to do. Because coupled with: I want to do the will of the Father is also I will do NOTHING without Him. I will do NOTHING apart from His command. Nothing... it's a powerful place with God.

Go ahead strive to hear His voice. Earnestly seek His command, His plan. But remember no response is to simply rest and trust in Him while doing nothing. It is from here that He will begin to command. And from here that you will discover a God like you have never seen before.

Take the mask off, and rest in the emptiness. It is here that surrender is found, and here that Christ will fill you with Himself. 

Resignation v. Surrender

2 Corinthians 11:30, "If I boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness."

This blog from day one, mostly without intention, has been about this concept of surrender. To die daily with Christ. To take up His cross daily. All synonymous with one another and different in expression so that we being different in makeup, education, influence, etc can understand.

Surrender in so many ways involves understanding the weakness of humanity and self. To surrender one has to come to the end of their abilities, understanding, strengths, knowledge... virtually everything. But one thing that is very important to understand is that surrender is not resignation.

Resignation is to quit. Surrender is to lay it down. Resignation is to loose, surrender is to understand that victory is not possible with human ability, thoughts, or plans. Resignation is to abandon hope, surrender is to put all hope in Christ. Resignation is to believe that what ever will be will be, surrender is to rest in the fact that God is in control working everything to the good for those who love Him.

So there is a stark difference in life beating you, and bringing you to a place of utter defeat where you resign to give up and abandon even the hope of God, and surrender where life proves to you that you cannot do anything apart from Christ and the will of God. They look very very similar, but are markedly different.

Surrender is perhaps part of, if not sanctification in its entirety. And surrender leads to a resurrection, whereas resignation leads to nothing at all.

In surrender we lay down all assets. Assets being not only possessions and finances; but talents and intellectual, physical, and emotional assets as well. All laid at the feet of Christ TO NOT BE USED outside of obedience. Its a hard thing to start, but once you practice a while it gets easier and easier. But initially it is very hard to know that you can do something to effect change in a situation, but to do nothing in the absence of direction of God is true obedience. To do nothing in the absence of DIRECT direction from God is surrender.

All that said, this laying down of everything is the acknowledgment of our weakness. We do not have to take our talents into life, and suffer loss after loss in order to understand we are weak without God. We are weak. Fight as you might in your abilities and discover the weakness firsthand, or do like Moses and acknowledge it straight up front. Like Moses I want to come to the place where I can say if God will not go with me I will not go. I am weak, and unless He goes, it is all pointless.

Peace in the Storm

Rembrandt "Jesus Calms the Storm"

John 16:33. "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

I used this scripture in yesterday's post as the fonder of contemplation in dealing with marital strife. But as I reflected more on it myself it came repeatedly to my mind that in Christ is peace, in the world is tribulation.

A mind in Christ is in peace, a mind focused on the world is in tribulation and turmoil. A spirit dwelling inside the kingdom of God is in Christ and Christ is in him and the perspective gives peace, but a spirit striving after the world and self is in tribulation and turmoil.

Henri Nouwen says, "Our emotional lives and our spiritual lives have very different dynamics, and we can literally 'choose where to live,' while owning both.  The ups and downs of our emotional lives depend a great deal on our past experiences and present surroundings and what they 'trigger.' ...

The ups and downs of our spiritual lives depend solely on our current level of obedience and surrender to what we Know to be so, regardless of external circumstances - that is, our attentive listening to and acting with the movements of the Spirit of God within us.  Without this listening and acting our spiritual life eventually becomes 'subject to' the windswept waves of our emotions, where we will 'act good' when we 'feel good,' and 'act bad' when we 'feel bad,' pointing to others as the cause when we act bad and feeling good about ourselves when we act good."

 There is an option, a choice if you will. It must be developed, and certainly does not come naturally. But we can choose to live by the spirit, and live in the peace of obedience to God. We can in turn develop this ability not by strengthening anything. There is no amount of self-will that can get us there. Rather we have to find this spirit strength in the weakness of surrender and a daily death. In this place is Christ and His peace. In this place we sleep on the boat in the middle of the storm.

Today I am there... in the sweet place of surrendered obedience. And believe it or not, it's so peaceful it is unnerving. Somehow my soul tells a lie of missing the stress of; striving to discover purpose,  and how can I so something for God, and why are these opportunities not opening up? What a joke. How can any part of me not enjoy the rest of simple obedience. How can part of myself try to shake me from the sleep so that I can go back to needlessly focusing on the waves.

What a stupid soul that I have... I choose to rest in the spirit.

From Suffering to Surrender

Job 42:5, "I have heard of Thee by hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee."

Job at the end of loosing literally everything except his very life says to God that he has heard about Him... but now he sees Him. God, you were an idea, a thought, a chapter in a book, a lesson at Sunday school... but now, wow... you are real. I see you!

This was Job's moment of awakening. The admission that everything he thought he knew or thought he was, all is abilities, all his personal strengths and talents are nothing when he says "I retract..." He awakens to the truth and has no option but to surrender.

Oswald Chambers says, "It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child..."

I posted the other day about bad days, pains, and general emotional suffering. It came in a moment of desperation, when I could hear God but not see Him. As many are aware a creditor had filed for foreclosure on my home. And simultaneously one of the loans on my property ballooned and the terms of renewal from the bank required even more cash I did not have. Adding insult to injury some property taxes on the same were past due. Perhaps I could try to solve the issue by borrowing it from someone, but in my heart I could hear God saying it's all ok. Then came the command. Something completely off the wall. It was to ask the bank for different terms of the renewal which included solving the tax problem.

I obeyed and in no uncertain terms the bank told me no way. That was Monday. Today is Thursday. The foreclosure was scheduled for Tues. On Wednesday a friend who had guaranteed the ballooning loan for me  asked me to meet him at the bank. Today, of his own volition, he suggested to the bank do the very thing I has asked of them, and which they rejected. Worded differently, but exactly as I proposed on the compulsion of God. They accepted.

In the middle of this meeting I had to make a trip to the car. On the way back my phone rang. It was the attorney for the creditor who posted my property for foreclosure. I asked if they had accepted my payout offer. He said, no. So I asked, "what are we going to do?" He said, they have no interest in foreclosing, and are not going to foreclose. Send us a couple hundred dollars, and make whatever payment you can as you can afford it. The for a little icing on the cake - a couple of friends, led byGod, have said they will partner with me in getting 2 of my books published.

I understand what Job meant... I have heard of Thee.. (and from Thee)... but now I see Thee. Today, I saw God's masterful hand at work.

The suffering that leads to surrender will lead to obedience. From there, there may or may not be more suffering, but one thing is for sure. Jesus said, "I you will obey me I will disclose myself to you." Today was full disclosure. Today was a day of seeing.

Meet Tim

Matthew 16:24, "The Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.'"

I met Tim today at Tomball Love Machine. For those who don't know, Tomball Love Machine is a co-ed group that gets together once a week in Tomball. Together we are a "safe place" for one another to express, question, learn, teach, and experience life in God. It's not a support group, though very supportive. It's not a recovery group, those certainly people have recovered as a result. It is really just what church probably was intended to be. A place of love and acceptance. A place you are welcome to come to with me.

So back to Tim... Tim retired a year and a half ago after a successful career in the art industry. Him and his wife had grand plans to enjoy their twilight years traveling. That was of course until his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Five weeks ago she passed away, one week short of their 37th wedding anniversary.

It was his wife's passing, and the crisis it created, that led Tim to a place of self described "surrender." Here is a man that depended on his wife for a whole lot more than companionship. She was the technology expert, fluent in navigating the computer. She took care of much more than cooking and cleaning, but the check book as well. Imagine waking up at sixty something having not used a washing machine in decades, or having not looked at an online bank statement...ever. The whole prospect of surviving can appear daunting. Just all salt in the wounds of loosing a lifelong companion, partner, and friend.

Tim has some anger. He has quite a few fears. But what is incredibly beautiful is the completeness of his surrender to God. He described it like this.

Imagine spending your whole life working to make money and being very successful at it. Only to wake up one day to realize all the work, all the money in the world cannot save his wife. Equally, to continue to on for the purpose of making money is futility, because more money is, once again, not going to bring his wife back. This confrontation of his life, his purpose, his being, and his well being led him to conclude there is nothing but God. This is surrender. The place where you realize there is NOTHING but God and His will.

In five weeks everyone that surrounds him, including his children have witnessed the transformation of surrender. His purpose is now to obey God today. He has seen the futility of plans, and received the joy of obeying daily. It is an absolutely spectacular thing to here and see. For me it is encouragement to continue on the journey God has me on. It is comforting to not be alone in the challenge of surrender.

Tim misses his wife. He still hurts tremendously. But the crisis precipitated a transformation. One in which he sees God clearer than ever before, and experiences His love in ways unimaginable. Leading to his greatest fear of all... that comfort and complacency might lead him back to the person he once was. 

Not Dead Yet

2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound mind."

I have spent the last 7 to 10 days in a place that I would describe as complete surrender. Knowing that I have nothing to offer God, resting in His peace, knowing He loves me, and waiting for His command to obey. And in an instant to my mind comes a call to action. A compulsion of  the Lord if you will... an act of obedience.

So what do I do? I spend a couple of days mustering up the courage to actually do it. And so I stepped out in faith only to be totally rejected and shut down. Instantly fear entered. Why?

Fear entered because I had determined in my mind what the results of the obedience should be. I had a predicted an acceptable outcome. In other words, I am still alive, still trying to control. Not believing and accepting the fact that I am dead in Christ, but needing once again for the cross to come to bear on some piece of me rising up against God.

Even worse the results started a whole process in my mind of how did I miss God? Is He mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Can I hear His voice at all? Did I wait to long to act? All lies designed to keep me from boldly going to God again.

Reality is that God's commands do not come with guaranteed to even predictable results. Additionally there is a place in surrender where the results are inconsequential to the obedience. Jesus prayed for the sick in His hometown in obedience to the Father. And yet the bible says few were healed. Results are not related to obedience as the results are dictated by God's intent, not ours. At the end of the day God is too deep to explain Himself, and for us to have complete understanding is never promised.

So what has happened in this realization of the fear. Firstly, for me the fear points to a practice I must allow to die. If I continue to predict or prescribe acceptable outcomes for obeying God the disappointment will cause me to veer from the obedience. In other words, if I continue to predict the outcome of my obedience, then my failure to correctly predict runs the risk of causing me to give up on obeying.  Secondly, this fear; which is related to crisis, is designed to show me the part of me that has not shared Christ's experience on the cross. The crisis, whether financial, physical, emotional, relational, health, or any other crisis is there to show me who I perceive myself to be in Christ. And as that perception does not line up with God's it is a huge opportunity to lay myself down and pick up Christ. In this case I reject the fear as a lie, and I go back to God, knowing I obeyed and ready for His next task.

In the end, outcomes are irrelevant, obedience to the compulsion of God it the only thing necessary. T Austin-Sparks says, "The only certainty is God. An apostle may be led to move in a particular direction, and then by reason of need and opportunity he may conclude that certain (results) are the objective, but when he reaches a point (where predicted results meet real results) he will be met by a double, divine 'no' to those thoughts, and be shown something un-thought of. (Acts 16:6-10)" Simply put, obey because predicting the results will be met with a "no." But the obedience will produce something un-thought of, something wholly God.

The fear is a lie, and a telltale sign of something un-surrendered in me, something not trusting in God. It is up to me to ignore the fear, press into God in prayer, and wait from His next command. The results are God's responsibility for which I share none. So until I get it completely, I feel all too often like the boy in the picture, crying to God about not getting my way.

Normal Christian

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 "But thanks to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other and aroma from life to life."

Watchman Nee in his book The Normal Christian Life (available to the right on this  page) concludes with the following description... a definition of what should be a normal Christian.

"Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered -- someone who has gone through experiences with the Lord that have brought limitation, and who, instead of trying to break free in order to be "used," has been willing to be imprisoned by Him and has thus learned to find satisfaction in the Lord and NOWHERE else -- then immediately you become aware of something. Immediately your spiritual senses detect a sweet savor of Christ. Something has been crushed, something has been broken in that life, and so you smell the odor...

We are speaking here of what we are; not of what we do or what we preach. Perhaps you may have been asking the Lord for a long time that He will be pleased to us you in such a way as to impart impressions of Himself to others. That prayer is not exactly for the gift of preaching or teaching. It is rather, that you might be able, in your touch with others, to impart God, the presence of God, the sense of God. Let me tell you, dear friends, you cannot produce such impressions of God upon others without the breaking of EVERYTHING, even your most precious possessions, at the feet of the Lord Jesus.

But if once that point is reached, you may or may not seem to be much used in an outward way, but God will begin to use you to create a hunger in others. People will scent Christ in you. The most unlikely people will detect that. They will sense that here is one who has gone with the Lord, one who has suffered, one who has not moved freely, independently, but who has know what it is to subject EVERYTHING to Him. That kind of life creates impressions; and impressions create hunger, and hunger provokes men to go seeking until they are brought by divine revelation into fullness of life with Christ.

God does not set us here first of all to preach or to do work for Him. The first thing for which He sets us here it to create in others a hunger for Himself..."

What an incredible definition of a Christian. Someone, who without saying a word, oozes Christ. Someone who without a single act is noticed by others to be in Christ. Someone, who just is, and because of just being causes others to hunger for more of the Lord. Like fresh baked bread, a normal Christian has a fragrance that creates hunger... hunger for more of God.

Sounds impossible, sounds like Jesus. But over the next several post we are going to look at what Watchmen Nee describes as this process of surrender. Where everything in us, about us, and through us is subject to Him.

Warning... to continue in understanding will require change. It will require surrender.

Surrender yet?

Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I have come to realize that no matter how much I try to articulate the experience most people are just not going to get it, unless that have already shared the experience before. I am finding this exceptionally true with all my post on surrender. Surrender being dying to self, bearing the cross, and a host of other euphemisms.

But the point in sharing it is not that you would understand per se. But at this point I share simply because it is what I feel compelled to do by God. I hope with all sincerity that even in the lack of empathy or understanding that somewhere in these words is inspiration to pursue God yourself.

The coming week, if the Lord wills, will be a different week in posts. I presently have the intention for a review of sorts of The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. It, for me, is a complete confirmation of the past 4 or 5 months, and certainly a complete confirmation of the past 67 days.

Please hear me on this... I am certain that I have discovered something in God that few find. All are called to it. All experience its beginnings, but few take it this far. I know, because at present there are only a handful of people I know who get it. I am also certain that there is much, much, much more. I am certain that I am nothing special, with no special gifts. And I am certain that God loves you every bit as much as He loves me. This thing is surrender. Complete and total surrender. (Stay with me)

At this moment I perceive myself to be in complete surrender to God. (Not true... but my perception. I am not conscious of anything else to surrender.)  I know that this complete surrender is purely a momentary place. God is going to have be walk out in this place before bringing me even deeper into it. But that is not the important part.

The important part is that the backside of surrender transcends faith. Post surrender there is no need for faith, as there is only obedience. (Jesus was not a man of faith, He was led by obedience.) Post surrender things become visible like never before. At that place were you honestly know that NOTHING in you is good. That EVERYTHING must be laid down. EVERYTHING!!!!! And that there is only Christ and His expression of Himself through you. This is surrender. I am nothing and I will do nothing save for Christ. This is a heart condition... this is soul condition.

Remember we are spirit, soul, and body. Surrender occurs at the soul level. At salvation we are confronted with the evils of our flesh and its animal tendencies. The blood of Jesus covers our sins past, present, and future. But from here the cross must be picked up. Why? It is picked up to bear onto our soul, the home of our character, the place of our ego. The cross weighs onto the soul illuminating its evil and proving it has no value apart from the Spirit.

We will cover this later, but Nee shows that original sin inflated the soul. The soul must be deflated so that the spirit of God can increase. I must decrease so that God can increase. This is not a statement of flesh. This is a statement of the soul.

I will close with this story. I have a friend who God told, "If you will live like a pauper I will make you rich." The man is already a multi-multi millionaire. His response to this compulsion was to sell his $3MM house and a bunch of toys and move to a $1MM house without the toys. Compulsion not satisfied he has now sold the $1MM house and moving to a much smaller home, but still not one of a pauper. The spiritual truth is this... He could have stayed in the $3MM home for all God cared. The command to live like a pauper is a command of his soul. Surrender God says. Be poor in your soul. Take no value in what you have or can do. Take no stock in your education, your savings, surrender it to me and I will make you rich. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God... We know our spirit is poor when we recognize are soul is too large and has driven it into poverty. Surrender to God and discover the riches of His Kingdom.

Rainbows

1John 1:5, "... that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."    

I can't remember where I read it, but I read that a rainbow is a look inside of light. Kind of cool if you think about it. Incredible how when red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet all combine in light it gives us a white light.

Letting imagination run wild I ask how does this describe God, who is light. Certainly depending on perspective everyone sees God a little different. Some might see Him as figuratively blue, while others see him as figuratively red. But light is some much more than the visible colors of the rainbow. What of the invisible colors like those in the scale of infrared or ultraviolet.

Think of it, God shines His ultraviolet light (the light used by CSI to find trace evidence) into the unsaved. Visible to their soul are the dust particles and evidence of the sinful life. Conviction, Repentance, Salvation... the Christian begins to play in the rainbow of the now visible God. He runs here and there looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He describes the rainbow. He loves the rainbow. But there is more... There is the infrared component of life.

What can we do with infrared? We can see in the dark! We can see things we could have never seen without it. The infrared part of God becomes visible after surrender. The infrared is the kingdom of God come alive in the Christian to give Him vision and clarity.

One last thing about light. I don't know when Science discovered that darkness is the absence of light just as cold is the absence of heat, but according to scripture God knew it all along. "In Him there is no darkness." Well duh!

I got nothing

Matthew 15:13, "Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up."

From the Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

"Brother, what has the Lord really been teaching you these days? He replied, Only one thing: that I can do nothing apart from Him.

Do you really mean... that you can do nothing?

...The Lord has shown me that I can do anything, but that He has said, 'Apart from Me ye can do nothing.' So it comes to this, that everything I have done and can still do apart from Him is nothing!... I do not mean to say we cannot do a lot of things, for we can... But remember the Lord's word is "Every plant which which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up... God is the only legitimate Originator in the universe, and His Holy Spirit is the only legitimate Initiator in our hearts. Anything that you or I plan and set on foot without Him has the taint of the flesh upon it, and it will never reach the realm of the Spirit however earnestly we seek God's blessing on it. It may last for years, and then we may think we will adjust here and improve there and maybe bring it on a better plane, but it cannot be done."

This understanding, this clarity is where I am in this moment.

Yesterday a couple of things happened that must be addressed with this attitude of surrender. They come as a spiritual test of my resolve to allow God to be an Originator and Initiator in my life. The first was a request for me to come to a job interview. The second was a foreclosure notice on my house from the home owner's association.

Logic says get a job and pay the bill. But what does God say? I think here is where people stumble. I think many give up on hearing from God, and instead act in the silence; when the silence was only there because "nothing" is the place surrender begins.

So I prayed about the job interview. I joked with my wife that I was going for her, but reality is I went because I felt like God was telling me to. Which in and of itself started a whole other round of surrender. Because if God was sending me to an interview, or any other place, the REAL PURPOSE is to be a reflection of Christ. Literally for hours I had to remind myself the interview is not about me. It is not about what I can do. It is about being a reflection of Jesus. It is about the Christ in me coming out. And so I went and for 2 hours I listened, and listened, and listened. I shared a few ideas, I made a commitment to do 2 things that I know can help their company, and beyond that it was all a lot of info about them, and for me to answer a few questions about my experience. At the end of the interview I was asked what I thought, and I was asked what compensation I was looking for. My response to the comp question was, I do not want to consider a job based on the compensation. I only want to consider it based on if I would do the job regardless of pay. We left agreeing to talk again next week. (My intent is to pray about what is the next step.) I could be wrong, but it appeared they were ready to offer the job to me on the spot. Either way, God has to tell me what to do.

On the foreclosure front, I know that I can jump in and "solve" the problem in my ability. I can negotiate a payment schedule, prolong the agony, but I want to know what God wants to do. Right now I don't know what His plan is, so the correct thing to do is nothing.

But you are going to loose your house!

Maybe, maybe not... but I am convinced to not move until He says move.

What's Missing

John 15:4, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me."

Life as a Christian... the walk if you will, is a constant discovery of what's missing. What is missing from our picture of Jesus? How can we know Him more? What is missing from the relationship? Christianity is constantly discovering something new about Christ in a subjective way.

Jesus says , "abide in me." This is our command to pursue Him. To get to know Him on the most intimate of levels. "I in you" is His promise that He will allow us to know Him.

The past couple of months for me have been filled with filling in the missing parts. I in no way have anything but a partial picture of who Christ is, but I wanted to recap some of what I have learned about Him since starting this blog.

I have learned that God loves me in and of myself. He has shown me that I am a one of a kind custom creation. As the Creator and His Son come closer into view I realize that there is so much in me that is not like Him. I have learned that this dross, this ungodliness must die. Though it is painful to lay down everything that makes me who I am it is necessary to allow those characters of Christ to replace it. Training... ever training of my character.

Beyond death of self for character improvement, I have learned that the same death must occur to love unconditionally. Taste, prejudice, predispositions, social upbringing all have to die to love another unconditionally. Hate, fear, hurt have to die in forgiveness to love an enemy and to pray for them.

So death has become a beautiful thing because it creates a joy of what lies ahead. What lies ahead of it is love and closeness to God. But not only my death is beautiful, but watching others die at the hand of God is beautiful as well. It is incredible to see with understanding how trials and challenges are being used in others to bring about the same death and resurrection. With this understanding you can jump in the mire of another's life without needing to rescue, without a plan, without falling to the temptation, only to be a light.

Sight is a major thing God has given me in this improved relationship. He has shown me, by drawing me close what it looks like from inside the Kingdom of God. He has given me glipses of what He sees. All brought about by having the intellectual understanding of Him turn into a subjective, relational, understanding of Him.

I know that baptisim is a symbol of us sharing in the death, burial, and resurection with Christ. I know that the water is symbolic of the water of the womb, and in baptisim we are placed back in the womb to be spiritually reborn. But this increasing relationship with God and His Son lets me see that baptisim is also the door to the kingdom of God and the vision that represents. Relationship tells me that I go into the water as flesh and in the world, but I rise in spirit and in the kingdom, and the kingdom in me. Luke 8:10, "And He said, 'To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.'"

I have sought to know God as Provider/Provision, as Jehovah Jira. And what I have discovered is that He is my Provision. If I have only Him and His presense then I have enough. And just yesterday I began to see Him clearly as Provider. In the vine... in Christ... I am attached to and part of God and all that He is and has. I see that He already knows my needs. I see that He has planned already to provide. That the daily bread is already allocated and on its way. I have not laid hold of it, but I am thankful He has a complete abundance for me.

Lastly, for the purpose of the blog, I see God is shifting. God has a big smile on His face for me and is saying, 'you are getting it... now let me show you something else.'

For me personally God is repeating 2 Timothy 4:5, "... fulfill your ministry." A ministry that I know includes preaching, praying, writing, and one on one encounters. God has hundreds of thousands of pulpits across the world. I know that He is opening many of them too me. I know that I will once again pray for the sick and see them healed. I know that this blog, my books, all that I write goes literally across the globe and touches people's lives for the better. And I will never stop finding the individual to love. To jump in the mire with and be a light, to see Christ in them with hopes they will see the Christ in me.

And I almost forgot the greatest personal lesson for me in all of this. The mechanism if you will that has allowed this vision. Shameless surrender that we might know Christ more. I wrote this inspired by the Holy Spirit not even knowing what it meant. I thought the surrender was to people and an act of love. The surrender is to God. A complete and total surrender. A leap off the cliff knowing... trusting fully in God. I am His bond-servant... not by obligation, but by choice.