Surrender part 4
If you're fighting, you're not surrendering. If you're working, you're not resting. If you're trying to finish the work, you don't know and believe that it is finished. And, in my experience, the harder you try to "fix" things, the more you end up messing them up. When you bang your head against the wall, all you get is a headache. The harder you tighten you grip, the more things slip through your fingers. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Jesus did it all. ALL. He did it all so we could get it all. And because we have it all, we can surrender all. We don't have to keep trying to earn something that can't be earned. Eternal life is the GIFT of God, and you can't earn a gift. If you can earn it, it's wages. And the wages the Bible talks about are the wages of sin, which is death. Jesus didn't come to make "evil" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. He came to free us from the bondage of sin and death. To bring us out of the power of darkness and into His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God which is within us. The Kingdom of God which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I truly think the biggest problem we make for ourselves is when we judge by appearance (instead of judging righteous judgment... EXECUTING the judgment that was handed down from Father to Son when God raised Jesus to life) and try to be someone we're not. Because when we judge by appearance we see the surface stuff. The outer court, or outer man (OLD MAN). We see the actions. The mistakes. The screwups. And then we think, "I need to be better. I need more knowledge about good and evil so I can do good and stop doing evil." But we don't discern BOTH good and evil. We don't discern that they are BOTH on the same tree! It's not about "good and evil." It's about life. And that more abundantly. And if it's about life, it's about love. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. And love is giving. But you can't give what you don't have. Which is why love is not that we love Him, but that He first loved us. We have to surrender to His love before we can love Him back (by loving others). We have to make the distinction that Jesus made. Adam was God's son and God loved him. But Adam (because he didn't have the Holy Spirit) didn't know that. Jesus was God's BELOVED Son because He DID have the Holy Spirit. The love receptor. He didn't try to earn Daddy's love. He simply received it and released it. Jesus didn't do what He did in order to be loved. He did it because He knew that He WAS loved! He was moved with compassion and motivated by love. He knew what He had, and knew it was too good to keep to Himself. Because He wasn't a fighter. He was a lover. He surrendered all--even His very life. He gave His life for us and He gave HIs life to us. Because He loved us. Plain, and pure, and simple. So when we speak of surrendering all, of presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, what we're really talking about is surrendering to love. Letting Daddy love us. Knowing and believing that He DOES love us. And then loving one another with the same love that we are loved with!