Sold Out To God

May 7, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under faith

Galations 3:3 “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”

Sold out is the only way to live. It is how we live when something is new and fresh. When you first fall in love, you set aside everything to be with the object of your affection. It’s hurts to be away from them. It is like that when we first find God. But as with human relationships we tend to grow comfortable, to think we knew who the other is and what they think. We assume much because of the relationship we have built and that very process of assuming starts a breakdown in the relationship.

What we must remember is that God has his own plans for his kingdom, the world and our specific circumstances. He organizes the campaign and gives us information on a need to know basis. Just as the architect is really the only one that fully grasps the big picture of a buildings construction, so God is the One with the big picture of enternity in view. Just as the mason, carpenter and plumber know and accept their roles in the construction project and submit to the will of the architect, we play a defined role in eternity that is pieced together by God for the completion of His master plan. Our job is not to understand the master plan but to get with the Architect to find out our job for today.

But alas! we too often make our plan, and we think that we know what ought to be done.We ask God first to bless our feeble efforts, instead of absolutely refusing to go unless God go before us.

Though we know better, our fear of submission makes us act like we know better for our lives than God does. But God is willing and able to reveal His Will to us. It the big picture of life it is far easier to wait until we have specific directions from the Lord than to spin off on our own plan and purposes only to find we have wasted years on something that might have been okay, but took entirely too much human effort. God wants to reveal His plans to us for in that revealing His plans in us and through us are more fully accomplished. And He can easily reveal His plans to the prayerful heart that is humble, tender and empty of its own agenda.

Oh that God would give us the intensity of desire for Him alone. It is in this desire that we refuse to accept anything else, anything less than God’s absolute revealed will for our lives. Oh that God would give us intensity in prayer to not let go of Him until we have His answer and His direction. Lord have mercy!

But where does this intensity spring from? It is in being sold out to God that the longing grows. When we seek the Holy Spirit’s working in our life it will come. When we surrender to God, when we conquer self and cast out sin then there is room for the Holy Spirit and the power of the Spirit in our lives.

Father, let the Holy Ghost have full dominion over me, in my home, in my temper, in every word of my tongue, in every thought of my heart, in every feeling toward my fellow men; let the Holy Spirit have entire possession.

Prayer is the key to unlocking the power of God. Prayer is the key to our submission to God. We cannot control our submission or surrender. We can only plead with God in His great mercy to allow it to happen in our lives. Making it happen on our own is proof that it has not happened. We need to believe less in speaking to men or thinking of our own solutions and more of speaking with God.

God forgive me that I have not honored the Holy Spirit as I should have done, that I have grieved Him, that I have allowed self and the flesh and my own will to work where the Holy Ghost should have been honored! May God forgive me that I have allowed self and the flesh and the will actually to have the place that God wanted the Holy Ghost to have.

Oh, the sin is greater than we know! No wonder there is so much feebleness and failure in the Church of Christ!

This synopsis and quotes are taken from Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray.

Guilt By Association

April 5, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under faith

There is a lot of guilt by association going on these days. Liberals prescribe motives and actions to conservatives. Conservatives do the same to liberals. Christians do it to atheists and atheists do it right back. It is a red herring and it is dividing us and it is wrong.

While it is true that you can generally prescribe tenants of the belief to a particular group, that is about as far as it goes. For instance, by definition atheists do not believe in God. However, it is not true that by definition they are bad people. There are definitely bad people who are atheists, but there are also bad people who do autrocities in the name of Christianity. Likewise there are good and pleasant and funny people who you would like as human beings who are atheists.

Please do not take this as my acceptance of atheist (or any other) belief. It is merely a recognition that we cannot impute motives or actions to an individual just because someone we associate them with takes those actions or has those motives…even if it is someone we associate them closely with. It is also a recognition that doing so is in direct contravention of God’s specific requirements that we not judge others lest we be judged.

Take the example of a family. There is a judge here in St. Louis that is Jimmy Hoffa’s daughter. That also makes her Jimmy Hoffa Jr’s sister. Those names conjure up specific images to many Americans. There is an immediate, and perhaps justified, rush to judgment when either male Hoffas are mentioned. But does that make the judge bad? Does that make her unfair? Corrupt? Of course not. She is none of those things. She is a good judge. Even though she lived years with men who conjure up many negatives, it is neither fair nor correct to impute things to her because of your views of her infamous family.

Why do I bring this up? God is after us individually and wholly. He is about the business of exposing our prejudices and biases to us so that we can be more fully like Him. We are at a time in this nation where it is not good enough to walk the Christian life we have always walked. As the old saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing things the way you have always done them and expecting different results.

Christianity can no longer be about us. It must be about God. It is time that we fall on our faces before the Almighty who loves us and gave Himself up for us and ask Him to gently reveal every area that keeps us from Him. We must yield our thoughts and our feelings. We must walk by faith and not by sight. And in doing so, in setting aside our rights and our presuppositions, we will find the peace and love of God that passes all understanding. In yielding to whatever His plan may be we will find true freedom, true power and true authority. And when we do that we will change the world. People will want what we have. When the atheist is your friend and you are walking in complete surrender to God you have knocked down barriers, maybe it is THE barrier that keeps them from God. Radical surrender is freedom. Radical submission is authority. Radical weakness is strength.