The Surrender That Brings Victory!

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 12)j

"Obedience is required in order for us to fully put to death our gods and sins.   Without our fully following God's commands, we will never kill those things that can kill us spiritually, and possibly even physically.  If we really want to become fully obedient to the Word, we will have to get to the place where we are confessing our sins as they come to our attention, and turning away from them by repentance.  We can no longer allow them to slide by for the moment while giving God our 'I'm sorry.'  God isn't as interested in our apologies as He is in our brokenness and true repentance of the heart.  If we do not grasp the severity of our willful disobedience and how much it hurts God's heart, we will never see the need to turn away from those sins, giving them up for good.  Instead, we will return over and over to our idol worship.

If you choose to continue in sin, you must remember that God will let your sin find you out!  In case you have never been there, removing sin from your life as the Spirit reveals it to you is far easier than have to remove the sin that you have been caught in!  Humiliation is a tough teacher, but she is highly effective!  Our surrender is the only weapon that can be used to dispossess the idols that remain in our hearts, and the sins that trips us up.  And remember, surrender is not waving the white flag to the enemy.  It is giving ourselves up totally to the power and control of the God who loves us with a holy passion. It is our surrender that will bring spiritual victory to our lives.
Let these definitions of scriptural surrender guide you in your own surrender.

SURRENDER is choosing to:

• walk in the control of the Spirit, instead of in the control of your own flesh
• die to your selfishness and become a new creation
• worship God through your love for Him that is displayed by your crucified flesh and obedience to His Word
• be humble before God in order to pray to Him, seek His face, and turn from the things that you do that are evil in His sight
• allow your flesh to be crucified and die every day so that you can walk through the veil and into His glorious presence
• focus on God's will as your only priority instead of what your flesh desires
• be broken by God for sin you have left unattended for too long
• be willing to make a 180-degree turn in an action, thought, or word
• be open to the Spirit taking control of your entire life so that He can gush out of you
• die for the glory of God!"

Standing Out Or Blending In?

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 9)

"Just like Abraham was asked to sacrifice his own flesh and blood, Isaac his only son, we have an altar of death that we must face as well.  And the sacrifice we must bring to the altar is our flesh.  These two verses describe it well.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. (Romans 12:1)

God is asking for our crucified flesh when He urges us to be living sacrifices.  You might be asking what your flesh actually is.  What is God really asking for?  Your flesh is made up of the body , the mind , our intent,  and our thoughts.  Our flesh is anything that stands in opposition to what God says.  And this is what God asks of us:  to put to death anything that is unacceptable to Him.  This crucifixion of our flesh unto death, given up as a sacrifice of our living being, is what God defines as worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

This a a huge problem with Christians today.  We don't look any different, in most cases, than those who are not believers.  The world can barely tell the difference, if at all.  We do not stand out; we blend in.  We are conformed to the world when we watch the same television shows and movies that the world watches.  We are conformed to the world when our CD's, iPods, and radios pump the same kind of music into our minds and hearts that the world listens to.  We dress like the world. talk like the world, and think like the world.  We take firm hold o the reins of our lives every morning when we wake up, and we don't lay them down until we fall into bed at night.  We continue doing what we know is wrong to do.  We want the same things that the godless want--more money, bigger homes, all the newest toys--security in all the wrong things.  We often are independent, self-sufficient, multi-taskers who have no need for a God who wants to take away our control."

In order for God to have His rightful title of Lord of our lives, we must crucify our flesh.  We will make the choice to blend in or stand out.  So which one are you?  Are you a chameleon who changes with every situation, always protecting himself by blending in?  Or are one who, moment by moment, is courageously crucifying your fleshly and worldly drives in order to be the stand out Christian God desires you to be?

How To Be Obedient, God's Way

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 9)

We are taught from a very young age that we not only can accomplish things, but it is better if you do it all by yourself.   This sounds like good instruction, but it does so because this has been ingrained in us since we began to hold our own bottles at feeding time.  But God's word does not teach that at all.  As a matter of fact, He tells us this in Zechariah 4:6 instead:

  

"Not by [your] might, nor by [your] power, but by MY SPIRIT, says the Lord of Hosts."

 "Here's the problem that most of us have when it comes to surrendering to God so that we might obey His every command.  We tend to try to do it in our own power.  In other words, we try to surrender the flesh--BY THE FLESH!  You have already heard that nothing good resides in your flesh, yet you are probably guilty of trying to surrender by your own fleshly power and strength anyway.  You have also likely discovered that surrender by way of the flesh is fruitless.  If you think that isn't true, then just think of one New Year's resolution in which you have succeeded for life!

It bears repeating.  We can only accomplish surrender to God in one way--God's way!  We must come to the place where we allow God to change our hearts and minds so that we understand that repentance--the intentional turning from sin--that flows from a heart that God is changing, is required of every God-seeking believer.  When we allow God to work in our hearts and minds we are set free to act upon the work He has already done within us--the heart-transforming act of placing the life of Christ in us by way of the Holy Spirit.  Because of this one action, we can fix our gaze on Him and turn away from our sin instead.  This is how we die to our flesh.

It is at the veil that divides the Inner Court from the Holy of Holies where the crucifixions of our flesh will take place.  When the veil of your heart that keeps you from fully surrendering to God is removed, then you will be enabled to become a fruit- bearer of the  greatest kind!  But if your walk lacks crucified flesh, then your flesh will remain in its state of decline, ruling over your thoughts, words, and deeds.  If you choose against the surrender that involves the crucifying of your sinful flesh, then you will become useless to God, and your 'religion' will be dead.  Remember, the flesh is death to you, but the Spirit is life."

We can do it, but not alone!  Our part is to surrender to the Spirit in us, and then He accomplishes obedience through us.  Any changes we make on our own can never be heart-transforming because our flesh is made of nothing good. Changing us is the work of the Spirit within us.  Only He can change your heart.

The Promised Land: Another Picture of Our Spiritual Journey

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POINT #1:  God wants our complete and full compliance to His words and commands.

"Now, let's make POINT #1 relevant to us.  Consider this concept that I want to share with you.  This is another picture of the journey to the complete healing of your broken spiritual heart.  It is very similar to the picture of the Tabernacle that we viewed and studied in Chapters 1-4.  Let's look at Israel's journey from the bondage of Egypt to their life in the Promised Land.

You hopefully have walked through the door of the Tabernacle into your salvation.  If you have, then at that very moment, you also walked out of your Egypt, the place of your spiritual bondage.  Now you are set free from the penalty of your sin, but you may have not yet arrived at your Promised Land, living in the moment to moment blessing and presence of Almighty God.  You have entered the Outer Court where you have been reveling in your salvation and are following God, but you not likely to have been constantly obedient to Him and His commands.  You, in a sense, are wondering there in a wilderness, not quite understanding how to consistently obey.

Then, when you purposefully stepped into the Inner Court (if you have), you found it to be a place where you began to remove (dispossess) the gods and sins that were in your "land"--your hearts.  This can be likened to the 'crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land,' where the Israelites began to remove the inhabitants because they were idolaters that worshiped other gods.  Sanctification takes place in you in the Inner Court where you begin to experience the Promised Land by systematically removing all that is in opposition to the God of your heart.  A similar cleansing of idol worship took place in Canaan, the Israelites' Promised Land, before God would  allow them to live in His Land of Promise.

Once all of the people of the land (the Canaanites) and their false gods were removed, then Israel could live daily in the constant and abiding presence of their God, in His blessing and favor, without the influence of false gods.  This is why it is called the Land of the Promise.  If Israel would do everything that God would command them to do, by removing all who were in opposition to Him, they would live in paradise on earth, in obedience to God and His blessing upon them.

God has a 'promised land' for Christians today. That promised land is on the other side of the veil of our crucified flesh. That promised land is the spiritual practice of obediently resting in God. The promised land, for us, is in the Holy of Holies, right here on earth!

The Deep Root System of Willful Disobedience

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"As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we should desire to make Him the only God in our lives, yet we struggle with just how to get that done.  Our hearts are filled with many sins and gods... and we know that we are commanded to take full vengeance on them.  When we look at the work ahead of us, we see that we are merely at the beginning of what could be a very long process of clearing out what keeps us from the intimacy with God that we long for and know is available to us.  In Matthew 26:41, Jesus said, 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'   If we are truly honest with ourselves, we likely want to opt out of taking full vengeance on the gods in our hearts.  The result of such a choice will be that our sin will produce thick roots that will be much more difficult to cut out later.  Why do we so often make this poor choice?  At the heart of the matter is the fact that we really do not want to obey God's call to dispossess them from our hearts."

The longer a root of disobedience is allowed to go deeper and grow thicker, the harder it will be to cut it out of your life.  The more your disobedient roots grow, the more you will find great stability in your disobedient lifestyle.  Today is the day to begin to chop away at the roots that keep you distant from God's plans and purposes for your life!  What are your roots?

(Quoted from Chapter 8, "Fully Following God's Commands" in Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, available for purchase at www.cherylgnagey.com)

THE RESURRECTED LIFE -- Day 31

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Day 31:  Mary Magdalene (John 20: 1-18)

Mary’s heart was broken.  How would she ever remove that horrible picture of her Savior’s crucifixion from her mind?  Forever it would be her last memory of Him.  The sorrow she felt seemed to be squeezing the very life out of her.  How could it have come to this?

Not being able to sleep, she did what any true friend would do.  Gathering a few of the other women who had traveled with Jesus while He was ministering, they left before dawn to anoint His body with the spices that they had previously prepared. 

As they arrived at the tomb, Mary saw that it stood opened.  Fearing that her Lord’s body had been stolen or moved, Mary left the others to go and report to Peter and John.  The news brought to them a new despair, and the three ran quickly back to the tomb to see if they could determine what happened.

Arriving ahead of Mary, Peter and John each looked into the tomb.  What were their eyes seeing, they wondered?  Jesus was gone, and only His wrappings remained.  Strangely, the linen cloths He had been wrapped in were neatly folded.  Then, it struck them.   Jesus had raised from the dead!  Leaving Mary outside the tomb, they ran to tell the others.

Weeping and alone, Mary walked back to the entrance of the tomb and looked in.  Looking back, Mary was startled by a Man she didn’t recognize.  Confusion filled her mind as He spoke to her.  Once again, she turned to look at the tomb and the large stone not far away.  Would she ever be able to piece it all together?

“Mary!”  the Man called out.  Turning around, Mary finally recognized Him.  “Teacher!” she exclaimed.  Running to Him, she fell to the ground and kissed and hugged His nail-scarred feet.  Her Savior lived!  He had risen on the third day, just as He said!

What do you do when you feel hopeless?  Where do you look when things don’t make sense?  When your life has been turned upside down, to what do you cling?  Is Jesus your first answer to these questions?

The Burning Fire of Lust

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Cravings . . . we all have them, don't we?  I was not one of those pregnant women that had the strange food cravings common in pregnancy.  But I certainly know what it feels like to crave something.  You know what I am talking about!  The inner urgency to have what you want, and right now!  Here is the simplified pattern of a craving.  You look at something or just think about it, then you desire it so strongly that you just have to have it.  It can take several days, weeks, months, or even longer, for the process to be completed, or it may take a mere matter of seconds.  Either way, one way or another, you will satisfy the craving, not matter what.  If you can relate to that because you have experienced it (and we all have!), then you know what it is to lust after something.

LUST . . . it is a topic most Christians want to avoid talking about, yet every one of us struggles with it. We usually attach a sexual connotation to the subject, yet most of our lust issues have nothing to do with sex.  They have to do with trying to remove God's rightful place on the throne of our lives with things that we consider far more self-satisfying and flesh-feeding.  Since we dethrone God in order to place a higher priority on our lusts and to enthrone them, we can also call our lusts both 'gods' and 'idols.'  Lusting after anything but God and the things of God, and chasing after them until we get what we want, is ultimately about placing ourselves on the throne of our own lives.

Your lust may not seem like an earth-shattering sin.  It might not even be sinful.  But in the beginning, lust spreads through our hearts like a wildfire.  It starts with just a little spark of fire, but has the potential to destroy thousands of acres of fertile ground, charring and blackening everything in its path.  And its path is not a simple line; it is far-reaching and in every direction.  

Lust is a fire in the soul that seeks to burn up every good thing found there.  One lust that begins as the spark of one simple action, if continually practiced over and over will, given enough time and attention, begin to destroy in your heart the good workings of God.  Your walk with Him, that once seemed so intimate and precious, soon will take on the stench of smoke.  If you take a closer look , you will likely see where the fire has already been.  You once green vine is now charred  and your fruit has burned up.

The fire of lust can be kept outside of the Christian heart, but it only takes one tiny opening for a spark to enter and set ablaze the house of the Holy Spirit.  Our hearts are to be set on fire, but by the Holy Spirit, who calls us to walk in holiness and righteousness, crucifying our fleshly desires, and establishing Christ as our only ruler on the throne.

What does your heart look like?  Are you faithfully keeping the world's flames at bay?  Do you smell smoke?  Where there is smoke, there is fire!  Surrender your lusts.  Lay them down at the foot of the cross.  Now, let the fire of the Holy Spirit ignite your heart!

 

Stuck in the Mud

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 Israel was preparing to enter into the Promised Land. Only the rain-swelled Jordan separated them from it. Under the wise direction of Joshua, the priests and the ark of the covenant entered the river first. A thousand yards behind the ark the 2 million plus group crossed over on dry land with their eyes firmly fixed on the Presence of God, the ark. If you are in a raging river, who are your eyes fixed on, yourself and your circumstances, or the Almighty God?

God has a "promised land" for you and me.  It is called the abundant life of Spirit.  It is a life in which we are to walk in the power of the Spirit and leave our crucified flesh on the altar of surrender.  The Israelites are such a great example for us today.  The spring rainy season was occurring, and the Jordan River constantly was out of its banks.  Yet, this is the very moment that God chose to bring His people into their new land--2 million people and all of their animals and belongings!  But Joshua, their new leader, trusted God and called the priests to bring the ark and set out across the river.  The very moment they exercised their faith, the dangerous river pulled back into on big heap upstream.  When the priests feet hit the riverbed, it was completely dry, as well!  One by one, the entire company crossed over on dry ground. 

So why do we struggle so with our faith in God to take us through our journey to that "impossible" heart transformation that He desires in us?  Why is it that we refuse to see that God is waiting for us to put our full focus and trust in Him so that He can do that "impossible" work in our hearts?  He is capable of helping us cross the great divide between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit.  He has the path laid out for us and He wants His Son to lead us to that abundant life by His Spirit within us.  Yet, we continually attempt to "cross the river" in our own strength and power.  Consistently, we keep drowning in our self-efforts to accomplish what we were never fashioned to do.

The Israelites were not to just sit on the banks of the Jordan, though, as if waiting for God to pick them up and move them.  On the contrary, when it was time to walk across, they were expected to walk!  But they could never have pushed the water back into a heap, and they likely would have drowned had they attempted to swim across.  God did the impossible so that it would make the "walking" easier.  The same is true in our journey to holiness.  God awaits your surrender to His will and His way.  He awaits that trusting gaze upon Him with a heart that says, "I believe YOU can do this in me; and I know that I cannot; so please GO AHEAD!"  When you get to that kind of surrender, watch out!  You might just see the "water" rolled back and the way become very clear--AND NO MUD dried up so that you do not get stuck along the way!