The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
All things have been handed over to Me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in Matthew 11
Oh beloved, it is true. We say things that do indeed show the temperament of our temperamental hearts.
We talk about how hard it is live out our Christian lives.
We talk about how hard it is to make good choices.
We talk about how hard we have to work to make changes in our families, cities, and world.
We talk about how hard the circumstances of our lives are.
And on and on and on and on we go… And we are totally missing the point.
What?
Yeah.
The answer is exceedingly simple. We have not yet fully repented and believed the Gospel. For the Gospel tells us clearly that the things we are trying to do are impossible for us to do. And this is the paradoxical core of the Good News:
1) you (i) cannot do it.
2) G_d can, has, does, and will do it.
3) you (i) must surrender in trust completely to Him, and allow Him to do the work.
Can this fool preach again? Be willing. This G_d calling for our absolute surrender and total dominance of our very existence is doing this because He can see the whole picture. And His calls for surrender are really but calls to save us from a certain death in a situation that is gargantuanly bigger, and infinitely more important than we can comprehend.
Said simply beloved, He is calling us to let go, and let Him handle things (read everything). And for this to happen, something in us has to die (read us).
And at the risk of being thrown out of the ring altogether, this fool will preach some more. i did it. It works. Jesus has literally changed everything in my life – and all for the better. my only regret in this whole milieu has been the 35-year delay, as my selfish old self whined and moaned at the prospect of its execution. Sure wish i had ignored my ignorant self, and listened to the Wellspring of all knowledge earlier than i did.
There is only one hard decision, that decision being the yielding of our entire being to Him. Can this fool assure you of one last thing? There is nothing hard after this. Let Him.
