Jesus all by Himself-part one

God, why do we always try to add to you? Why is the Great I AM not enough for us? What do we possibly think we can bring to the holy table of your amazing grace and sacrifice? "In my hands no prize I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling." What more could we ever do than has been done on the cross? "It is finished". That says it all. Jesus, I want to know YOU-only YOU. Not religion, or good deeds or morality or laws or rules or even other people or ideas about You, just You-in your lovliness and glory and completeness. Can I have that? Can I just have YOU? All else is emptiness-utter worthlessness, even my own life-especially my own life.


The Signature of Jesus, by Brennan Manning

"To follow Jesus is to take the high road to Calvary. Littered along the Calvary road will lie the skeletons of our egos, the corpses of our fantasies of control and the shards of self-righteousness, self-indulgent spirituality and unfreedom."

Let's unpack that for just a minute. The road to Calvary is the road to death. Jesus bids us come and die-follow Him to death. That is not a comfortable, easy existance, but it is glorious. Every word in the above statement has to do with trash and death: littered, skeletons, corpses, shards. What we think is our commitment to Christ and the Christian life is trash. It is self and self is what we must die to. Reminds me of Paul:

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss of the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowhip of His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

That sounds a lot like death-loss, rubbish, suffered, sufferings. Paul says whatever things were gain to Him. What things are gain to me that God is calling me to die to? My own righteousness (derived from keeping the law), my reputation (Paul was a zealot among Pharisees), my physical well-being (Paul suffered stonings, beatings, hunger), my freedom (Paul was imprisoned multiple times), my own agenda (Paul was relentless with preaching the gospel-he did little else). For me lately, God has called me to give up money, time, sleep, my rights to let others know how they have hurt me-nothing like Paul, but hard nonetheless. And I am sensing Him leading me to even greater sacrifices-things I have held dear for a long time. Am I willing? My prayer right now is "Lord, make me willing." For I know that even the willingness to be willing is from Him-His work of faith. Even that small thing, I cannot bring-I do not have. I have nothing.

"We have to abandon the cankerous, worm-eaten structure of legalism, moralism, and perfectionism, that corrupts the Good News into an ethical code rather than a love affair."

Who, if given the choice, would choose to keep a check-list of do's and don'ts when you could enter into the most amazing love affair of your life? Who would do that? Yet, that is exactly what we do when we make it about keeping rules instead of loving our Law Giver. When you love someone, and love them madly, it is so much easier to want to please them and do what makes them glad. Our main problem is not with our sin so much as not loving our Savior.

Prayer from a Pastor in Zimbabwe-he clearly loved his Savior with a passion I only hope to have someday:

"I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean in his presence, walk by patience, am uplifted by prayer and I labor with power. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions are few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till he comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till he stops me."

Can I get an AMEN???????.....to be continuted