Last week, I had thought I didn’t have a post done for 21 January beforehand, so I wrote this on the way home from church. But when I got home, I found that I did have one last post prepared. It was late, because we had stayed for the afternoon service. Still, I decided to schedule it for next week, because it is something that I want to remember.
In the following weeks, I intend to share the lessons that I have learnt on my mission trip. I think they will not have much to do with language learning, if at all, but I felt that it is appropriate to post this here. The posts will be more like this, without a word from a verse, but still featuring a verse. Expressing Meaning is still my personal blog, and my beliefs are very much a part of me. I am putting all these posts into a new category, called Meditations, because it is what comes to my mind as I ponder God’s word.
But for today, I think what has struck me the most is about surrender. In particular, total surrender to Christ. To deny the self.
Total Surrender
Matthew 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
Luke 14:27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
The word “surrender” does not appear in the text, but the total surrender to God is a theme through the passages that the verses above are taken from.
I do not think it a coincidence that there was a revival meeting this weekend held at my church whose main theme was Follow Christ Whatever the Cost.
Nor do I think it a coincidence that the previous week while I was still in the United Stars, I came across a book by Charles F. Stanley in my uncle’s house, that led me to search up this author in my local library’s eBook collection. I did not find the same book he had, but I found one that I read this weekend titled The Blessings of Brokenness. And what did it talk about that struck me the most? That God requires our whole selves surrendered to Him. Holding out on something doesn’t work out.
There is an area in my life that God has been speaking to me about, even as I read. Something that I have been holding back, drawing a line and not letting God come near.
If we draw those boundaries God will not work in us, the unfulfilled potential wasted. I read it this weekend but even as I type this the devil is trying to plant seeds of doubt against God’s word. He tries to convince me that it is okay to hold something back. It is something small and it is no big deal.
It’s those Small Things…
Ah, but it is the small things that lead to the bigger things.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
And yet, verse 13 tells us that God will be the one to help us through, the way He helps us through every thing if we only let Him.
1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
We all have our weak spots, the things that we don’t want to give up. But if we view these temporal things in the lens of eternity, if we consider what God has done for us who are redeemed, then is it not reasonable that we give up these trivial things?
(Full disclosure: It took me 6 days of struggling – it was only on Jan 27, the following Saturday, that I addressed the issue, despite knowing I should have done it the moment I got home on last itself Sunday.)
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