It is and becomes the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) in every facet of our lives.
Every decision, big or small, is not just about how we behave; equally important is what we do with our time, our money, our energy. What do we do and how do we act in the moments when we think it doesn’t matter? Often, that sounds too extreme, or too far to one side. It has become more of an “ it’s a nice thought but…”
The reality that a lot of people run from is the complete submersion of our lives into another way of living. When it comes to that point, often it’s not quite as ‘nice’ as a lot of us thought it would be. Do what we want, but saved by grace, the best of both worlds.
Here’s what Jesus did. He left everything He knew behind to become a disciple and then a rabbi. He left His family and His friends. He left all his belongings, having only what He could carry. As a disciple, He would’ve followed His rabbi everywhere. Walking with him, traveling with him. Learning all of his ways and teachings. His life became about becoming a disciple completely; that was the epicenter of his life, and the rest molded around it. That was His journey to becoming a teacher/rabbi himself.
The main difference between then and now (besides most of us not living in ancient Israel under the Roman Empire) is that, then, becoming a disciple was seen as the greatest achievement for a Jew. In today’s time, if you give everything up to become a disciple, you’re seen as an idiot, misinformed at best, and completely extreme and out of touch with reality.
Jesus calls us to live as He did and to follow Him. He calls us to be His disciples. He says we need to lose our lives to gain the life He offers us.
“I spend time with God and sometimes go to church, isn’t that enough?”
“Why must I think about all my money? It’s mine. If I give and I’m responsible, does it matter how I spend it?”
“All my time. I’m a good person, I pray every now and again, and try to do good. I go to church sometimes”
You can be a good person. Your money is your money. Your time is your time. Those things don’t mean you’re a disciple of Jesus.
Being a christian isn’t just about a ticket into heaven. It isn’t a check in the box and then you can carry on doing what you want, because now you believe. Something that I heard once opened my eyes to the reality of what we’ve come to think of as normal. Even the demons believe in Jesus and God. Believing isn’t enough. It’s an excellent starting place, but indecision and inaction never leads anywhere good.
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24
These are only three verses to communicate what He really asks of us when we say we are Christians/followers of Jesus/believers of the faith.
We cannot become the people He created us to be if we don’t willingly kill the person we were before we met Him. You serve two different agendas. It’s as simple as who are you living for? If you live for yourself, then your time is your time, your life is your life, and you are who you want to be. We cannot serve two masters. It’s us, or it’s Him.
We know what we’ll gain. But seldom do we really think about what we need to give up, because we talk about the grace of God so much.
We could never deserve God’s love, or His son on that cross, dying so that we could be free and have a relationship with Him. He says by faith we are saved.
What does faith look like? Faith looks like action. Faith is learning to serve the people around you. Meeting the needs of others. Faith is making time to spend with the Lord when you might not want to. Faith is looking at what you spend your money on and asking God, “Is there any area that you’d like me to help someone, or something financially?”
Faith is using your time to advance the Kingdom of God. Faith is the courage to speak up and out, asking someone if you can pray for them. Faith is telling someone about how your life has changed. Faith might be just changing something in your workplace to be more God-friendly, in a non-pushy way.
Faith is action in the big things, but it starts with action in the little things that no one sees.
Full surrender to Christ is understanding that He wants all of us. Our hearts and our minds. The hurt, the anger, the addiction, the loneliness. Then He wants your time and your willingness to say, “Here I am, Lord, use me”, “How do you want to use me today?”, “In whose life can I make a difference with Your testimony?” Full surrender is seeking God in every part of your life, wondering how you can live in a God-purpose way. Without fully surrendering, we will misrepresent Christ and His gospel, and we will look like hypocrites to those who don’t believe. Our mouths might say one thing, and our actions will often say something different.
Is it extreme? Yes
Is it an honor? Yes
Is it difficult? Yes. It takes a lot of courage to say that you’re broken and you can’t do it on your own. Or that you’d like help and then to change the trajectory of your life.
Is it worth it? There is nothing greater than the joy of the Lord and His peace. His confidence and Love. His hand that will never leave you alone, no matter how difficult life can get and how much we suffer.
How do you start on the journey?
Realizing that you can’t do it on your own. For me, I realized I couldn’t change and break the damaging habits on my own. I realized I couldn’t be the person I wanted to be without giving it all up. People like being in control. Life doesn’t allow that, though. Control is always an illusion. Bad things happen. We find ourselves in difficult places, having to make tough decisions. How difficult is life when you try to do it all on your own?
To get to the place where you can be honest with yourself and the Lord. “ I want to lay it down, Lord, but I don’t know how, and it’s hard. Help me” is one of the most humbling and most difficult admissions. No one wants to feel incapable, and that’s the lie we believe we are admitting to.
I’d like to offer a different perspective. What if you’re admitting that you want more? You want more than you can do on your own? You want to achieve more than you thought possible? You want to be the best leader, shoulder so many burdens, maybe it’s a business orientated mind, or you want to be work harder as an athlete, or be the loving husband who also works very hard and en engaging dad. The only way you can do all the ‘more’ things, is through full surrender. Doing it on your own means the wall is always waiting for you, it’s just about when you’ll meet it face to face.
You can start with the little things: focus on whether there’s something in your life that distracts you from the Lord and keeps you occupied. Something that you’ve ultimately given a higher priority than God.
The most important thing is always to bring it before the Lord. He transforms us with His love, so that we will want to live differently because of how good it is, because His ways are for our success and flourishing. We cannot do this on our own by giving ourselves a bunch of rules to live by, and boy-oh-boy, if you break one of them. Our God is relational. If there’s people pleasing (fear of man) in your life, He wants to help you love and view yourself as He views you, so that you can be sure of yourself and not care about the opinion of others, so that you can live free. That’s how your people pleasing (fear of man) will change.
God bless you and may you be transformed by His love and the Holy Spirit.
Be encouraged.
