He is the Potter; we are the clay.
Have you ever noticed how all of creation naturally obeys God? The Sun, Moon, Stars, the entire Universe; the livestock, the cattle, sheep, and goats; the ocean and all that lives in it; the weather and the seasons? Everything God created was created to obey Him.
If you were a pen in the hand of an author, would he feel your resistance every time he picked you up to write, or would he look forward to using you because you moved so gracefully with the movement of his hand across the page?
Currently, I’m rereading “Absolute Surrender” by the late Andrew Murray. He paints a beautiful picture of the surrendered life. I used to think that all Christians “had” to live the surrendered life. I did not think there was another option. But God actually gives us a choice. Though we are saved by grace through faith, we still must choose to follow Christ. You see, the difference between God’s “naturally” obedient creation and us humans is that we were created with the freedom to worship and to love. So, unlike a natural pen in an author’s hand that simply obeys, we can choose to resist the hand. So, though we can indeed choose to resist the Holy Spirit in our lives as Christians, we will certainly regret doing so. Why? Well, let me put it this way. Think of the Holy Spirit in you as the conduit of God’s love for you. Now think about living your life as a Christian void of the joy, peace, hope, comfort, protection, provision, direction, compassion, voice, love, and all the benefits that come attached to having the Holy Spirit beyond just being saved. You and I both know some miserable Christians. Though they are born again, they are some of the most unhappy people on earth. This is the result of them continually resisting the “hand of the Author.”
So, though we have the choice to follow Christ, God did not intend for us to do otherwise. The Christian life from start to finish is meant to be lived in full submission to the Holy Spirit. Yet, some of us have no problem acknowledging this, because our problem was never about acknowledgment, it was about the pain of trying to obey God but feeling like we constantly fail. Well, then this is the post for you. I have wonderful news, and here it is: STOP TRYING. What do I mean? Let me use the image of the pen in the author’s hand again. Tell me? What is the responsibility that is put upon the pen? The only responsibility the pen has is to do what it was already designed for and fully equipped to do, right? It was already designed with the capability of holding the ink within itself. This took no effort on the part of the pen. Not only that, but the pen was not responsible for acquiring the ink it contained because the ink was poured into the pen by another. And another thing, the pen is not responsible for how the author chooses to use it. The only responsibility the pen has is to allow the author to hold it and use it as he wishes. So too, the only responsibility we carry is one of willingness.
Now that I’ve explained that the effort to obey Christ does not rest upon your “ability to obey” but instead upon your “willingness to obey,” I now need to explain the next step. Remember Jesus’ words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). And in 2 Chronicles 16:9 God tells us that His eyes roam throughout the whole earth in order to give strong support to those whose hearts are “fully His.” Once a child of God is “willing” to obey Christ, they must willingly “deny themselves” and live the rest of their lives as those known for having “hearts fully devoted” to Christ. These two statements are held within the “surrendered life” that we are called to. But again, is this difficult to do? No, it is not. It is still a matter of willingness. Allow me to create an image here. Pretend you were raised as an orphan. You didn’t know who your parents were, and your “fake parents” never viewed you as anything more than the check they got from the state for caring for you, which they didn’t really do anyway. They fed you the leftovers of their natural-born offspring and your clothes were leftovers too. Beyond this, you were ignored, neglected, rejected, and beaten, but you never knew what you had done so wrong. Your life was one of death. You lived to survive and eventually die. You didn’t know where you’d come from, why you were here, or where you were going. But one day a man knocked on the door. You were the one to answer. He said He’d been searching for you. He said, “You’re safe now” and then asked, “Do you know your name?” You said no. He said, “Your name is Hope.” He scooped you up in His arms, carried you away with a new name, and gave you a new home, new food, and new clothes, you joined His family and suddenly realized you had just been given a new identity with meaning and value, and now are loved and cherished, given true security and a future filled with HOPE.
Before Christ knocked on your door you were without hope. Hope came in the form of Christ. Have you ever lived without hope? If you have, as I did at one time, all you live for is death. You are waiting to die. It is your only relief. Not all of us have realized how meaningless our lives were before Christ. But in truth, any sense of hope and purpose we had before we met Christ was a facade. Without Christ, society creates a false sense of hope and purpose because it must. If society, outside of God, did not create its own reason for living, it would kill itself. And that’s the truth. So, though I may have gone on a rabbit trail for a moment, I want you to really consider your relationship with your Savior and Lord. Are you willing to live “absolutely surrendered”? If you followed the story above, about the girl named Hope, you saw that she fully and joyfully gave up her old identity in exchange for her new one. Did she struggle to give it up? NO. Was there any reason, any reason at all, that she would ever consider returning to her old life? NO. Is there any reason in the world that she would ever complain about her new life, or be unthankful, or desire to leave, or desire anything but complete, full, and utter submission to anything asked of her by her loving, generous, kind, and good father? ABSOLUTELY NOT! So then, you too, child of God, consider yourself dead to anything and everything resembling your old identity. And then consider yourself raised to a new life, as a New Creation, with a brand-new identity.
As Hope discovered, the surrendered life is the result of a “grateful life.” And regarding this, the Apostle Paul reminds us: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers (and sisters), by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:1-2). Paul just described the life of surrender here. Prior to chapter 12, Paul explains how Christ has brought us HOPE. And now he says this hope came to us solely due to the “mercy of God.” When a child of God grasps the depths of God’s mercy towards them, this mercy which has led to this hope they carry, they are naturally thankful, so very, very thankful! And like our girl in the story, they will live the rest of their lives absolutely surrendered.
Aletheia: Truth in the Darkness 