Awakening..... to the concept of absolute surrender. We should have seen this a long, long time ago. It is clear in the word. Our salvation is in essence a trade. Our pearls for His...Him. Our lordship over ourselves for His Lordship... and blessing over us.
The scriptures are so very clear and yet satan has up till now blinded us to the plain truth. God expects us to surrender. Totally. Unconditionally. Absolute surrender. That IS our salvation, for in giving up us, we get Him in full measure.
How clever satan has been. To almost all of us to a tee, that concept scares the heck out of us, so we relegate it to fringe theology, the doctrine of radicals. But there it is.... in our Bibles, and no matter how much we want to avoid them, or interpret them away, they stand. We must lose our life to find His in us. We must want to be free of the old nature that we think can surrender over years, even decades. Curiously, no one ever fully casts themselves on the grace of God to do what He said he would do.... cause us to walk obedienty.
To us, we do not want to surrender, not TOTALLY, for that means our free will is lost for even it too is put on the alter and offered up to our Lord. We cringe. We think that the will of God means no more fun and no nights out and driving a 15 year old car and .... as we regurgitate and repeat the lies and fears satan is feeding our brains. But he is a liar, and the great truth of absolute surrender is about to be re-discovered, and we will LOVE it, praise God.
You see, we bemoan counting the cost.... us....fun, sex, pot, beer, cigarettes, vacations, oh, and SHOPPING! But remember, this is a transaction. We GET something in return, and it is this glorious thing He is awakening us to.
More to come, but do this if you would. Simply get before God and examine your level of surrender. Start looking at it in a different light. God has told us that His will for us is good, and perfect, and yes, acceptable too. Will we disagree? What are we told happens to a lump of clay not in the center of the potter's wheel? Nothing. Same ole same ole. Ah, but what happens when we center ourselves on God as HIS possession, as we choose to agree with God that He owns us, and we make the valley of decision choice "Your will, not mine be done."? The master potter places His skillful hands on the lump of clay, and fashions a vessel, a GLORIOUS vessel out of it, fit for HIS use. Who causes the clay to be transformed? The hand of the potter. All He requires of the clay is trustful surrender. Absolute surrender.
We are about to be awakened and shown through new eyes the second half of the new covenant.... the highway of holiness where God inside us literally causes us to take the way of escape He provides every single time. God's will a bad thing? LOL. Ha! Our joy will be beyond measuring, victory over the world, the flesh and the devil the heritage of every single one of us, especially the weak ones. Would you not love to hear "Behold how they love one another!" concerning the church from your unbelieving and previously critical non-Christian friends? I would. I will! And so will you.
Blessings,
Gideon