White Flag part 5
Jesus surrendered. He waved the white flag. And that's how He won. He didn't fight for His life. He gave His life for us, and He gave His life to us. He laid it down so He could take it up again. And because He did it--and because He had drawn all men into Himself when He was lifted up on the cross--WE did it. Because He won... we have already won. The war to end all wars is over. We don't have to fight anymore. We don't have to fight with sin. He took it away. We can lay it aside. And we don't have to fight with each other. We are all connected by the love of God. The love that IS God. Before the cross it was all about man-centered, performance based religion. Trying to follow the Law in order to earn something from a (seemingly) distant and angry taskmaster. It was all about making yourself look as good as possible. But since the standard of the Law was impossible to live up to--especially when you consider that Jesus made it about your thoughts, and the intents of your heart, not just your actions--making yourself look as good as possible usually consisted of making others look at bad as possible. "Thank God I'm not like that sinner." Only... yeah you are. We're all basically the same. We're all people. We all go through the same stuff. Struggle with the same stuff. But I'm saying NOW, on this side of the cross, we don't have to. We can stop fighting. We can stop trying to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. We can start resting. It doesn't have to be "us vs them" or "me vs you". Because we are all in this together. All parts of the same body. On the cross Jesus AND Adam died. And ONLY Jesus rose back up. There's only one man left. The New Man. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. And that doesn't mean we try to be like Jesus. Jesus is not a window that shows us who we might be some day. Jesus is the mirror that shows us who we are right now. Who we are in Him. Who He is in us. And that's what true surrender is. It's not giving up on who we are so that we can try to be someone we're not. It's EMBRACING who we really are and letting go of everything else. Letting go of the world's view of who we're "supposed" to be. Letting go of the chains that have bound us for so long. Guys... Jesus unlocked the door. And He stands at the door and knocks. All we have to do is believe that what He did was enough and open the door! All we have to do is respond to the Way of Grace with the Walk of Faith. All we have to do is surrender ourselves to the truth. Present our bodies as a living sacrifice and--instead of trying to be someone we're not--let Jesus be Himself in us, and through us, and as us. If we try to save OUR lives we'll lose them. But if we lose our life FOR HIS SAKE then we'll find it. Find TRUE life. Abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. We'll be partakers of the divine nature when we stop struggling with our old nature. When we stop dragging around the corpse of the dead old man we used to be and start letting Jesus carry us as He makes His own foot steps in our feet. His yoke is easy and His burden is light because HE is the one carrying it. He did all the work. It is finished. And now we can enjoy the fruit of His labor. The fruit of the Spirit, which is love. Not by looking for love in all the wrong places. Not by fighting for it. But by surrendering to it. Being open to love. Letting God love us and loving each other with that same love!