Working with kids, one of the things we teach them when talking about Christ is asking him to be "Lord of our lives." Kids understand that concept better than they understand "asking Jesus into your heart."
It makes a lot more sense to me too. It's an active text versus a passive text. To my mind, asking Jesus "into my heart" just means I'm asking him to live there, but not really take part in anything I do. But asking him to be "Lord of my life" means (to me) that I'm asking him to actively guide me in what to do and where to go.
But this morning I thought, "Am I doing this daily?" In all honesty - no I'm not -but I should be. Scripture says:
"...If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lost it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" Luke 9"23-25
Did you catch that one little word in the first sentence? The word DAILY. Ouch, I'm supposed to take up my cross daily, not just the one time I accept Jesus to be Lord of my Life, but I should be asking him to take control over every day.
Think about the day Jesus took up his cross. Before he was arrested, he knelt in fervent prayer. Praying so earnestly that at one point, he sweat was like drops of blood (see Luke 22:44 then check out http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t018.html for more information on how this can happen). His body was under such stress that he literally sweat blood. But did he turn away from what the Father had called him to do? Did he say, "Forget it, I'm going to do this my own way." No! He took up his cross and followed God.
That is what we are called to do - DAILY. Does that mean God is going to call us to suffer and die for a world that doesn't deserve it? No, because Jesus has already paid that price. But God may call us to suffer at a job that is stressful in order to support our family. He may call us to step out of our comfort zone and talk to the person behind us in line at the grocery store about our faith. He may call us to suffer from loss or injury so we can be a servant to those who will follow in our steps. He may call us to the mission field - whether it be in Uganda, Romania, or at our very own homes.
My point is simple. Are you taking up your cross daily to follow God? Is He really the Lord of you life - the Lord of your everyday? Are you starting your day with prayer to seek God and find out what he wants from you that day? Even if you're doing that much, are you following through? Or are you saying, "No, that's to hard/uncomfortable. I can't do that. Let someone else."
Luke 9:24 "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?"
No comments:
Post a Comment