Counterfeit Obedience

Like many of the devotionals from My Utmost for His Highest, the June 8th devotional contains a real nugget of wisdom. A couple of sentences in particular stuck me like a ton of bricks.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.

Whoa! Oswald Chambers tells us that we fake obedience by performing great acts of self-sacrifice. How often have I done that. How often have I pretended to serve God — to act in obedience to Him… even to the point of great acts of self sacrifice (read that "be the martyr"), when all along I was doing it for self-serving reasons rather than acting in His service. He tells us that it is easier to fake it than follow Romans 12:1-2.

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. 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.

Our spiritual duty for worship is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Be very clear that any animal presented to Yahweh as a sacrifice under Levitical law was 100% committed — no backing out, no escape. If we are to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, our commitment must be the same, even of the result may be different. The blood of the sacrifice has already been offered by Jesus at Calvary, but we must still claim that redemption by total and complete surrender and abandonment to the will of God. Instead of being like the world, we are to to the perfect thing that Jesus has already given us the example for. The better thing that we should do is to discern God's will (requires listening to God and His spirit at work in us) and then to fulfill God's purpose for us. I like the way Mordecai put it in Esther 4:13-14

Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?

He reminds us that God's Will will be accomplished. The only question is whether we will be in or out of that will. We need discernment to determine if God has perfectly positioned us to be the hands, feet, heart, etc. that He will use to accomplish His will. If we are to be part of it, we are to start with obedience, and proceed through surrender and abandonment that we might end up in full contentment basking in the glory of His will.

Abandonment... The Next Step

continuing from last time...

Although I certainly feel confident in the surrender that I have made, I realize more clearly now that my surrender is not complete. Not full. Having previously declared to myself that "surely I've surrendered everything now," I continued to find areas of my life that were exempt from the surrender; areas that I'd excluded God's perfect will from controlling.

Searching out the next area for surrender was always a hit-and-miss proposition. I'd think real hard... until I would discover (or not) an area that I had intentionally excluded from the agreement, only to discover later that there were more. How easy it is to fool yourself when that is your fundamental goal. It is almost as if I was fighting for the survival of my self, and then I realized that that was exactly the case. My flesh was fighting to keep its identity. Not fully accepting that it was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), my flesh reckoned that it was an entity unto itself — somehow important, because it was unique and was actively hiding these areas to extend its useful life. This unenlightened approach to searching out these areas seems so naïve now. Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart proved to be the source for the energy needed to overcome the inertia inherent in my unredeemed flesh.

When the individual is fully surrendered, there is no longer any part of himself or herself that holds back from God's will. Typically, at this point, surrender now covers all the circumstances of life, not just the truth about God and his explicit will (commandments) for human beings, given through the Bible.

While some things that happen to us may clearly not be what God would wish or has brought about, yet he does allow all — the tragic loss of a loved one, for example, or of health or opportunity, or a grievous wrong done to us by the sins of others. Otherwise such things would not happen. We therefore no longer fret over "the bad things that happen to good people," though we may undergo much hardship and suffering. While he does not cause these things to happen, we now accept them as within his plan for good to those who love him and are living in his purposes (Romans 8:28). Irredeemable harm does not befall those who willingly live in the hand of God. What an astonishing reality.

Given this new insight, I can formulate a new approach to rooting out every cache of "me-ness" that hasn't been surrendered. So what's the insight? It's hidden right there in a Bible verse that I've read hundreds of times. Paul writes to all of the people in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his own holy people. He tells them...

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

So those things in my life that I fret over, or regard as unfair, or unfitting for a person such as myself... point to areas that have not been surrendered. Full surrender becomes abandonment to God's will when we accept our situation, even though we may not like it. Job clearly did not like the situation he was in, and though he did not curse God, he most certainly thought it unfair that he should be treated as he had been, that is, until he faced the Creator of the Heavens and Earth. He quickly set aside all complaints and accepted his lot. He abandoned his own will for God's will and received a new identity in Christ.

That same new identity is available for me and you when we choose to abandon ourselves completely to Christ. In what could be perhaps the greatest irony to those who steadfastly hold onto self, we may not have the choice we think we have. In describing the gates of hell, Dante writes "All hope abandon ye who enter here." The ultimate question may not be whether we will eventually abandon all, but rather what we choose to abandon — hope or self. If we would enter into the kingdom of God, I believe that we must fully abandon our identity made of flesh and fully accept the new identity Christ has made available to us. In the end, Job replied to the LORD:

"I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:1-6)

When Job accepted that new identity, he was blessed. We find that the LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God, and accept the new identity he has for us, we will be blessed and can rest in his embrace knowing that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

I Surrender All

Have you ever wondered whether you really surrendered your will to Christ? Has the "accuser of our brothers and sisters" been at work accusing you of faking it? From time to time, I find myself in this position and begin to doubt my intentions. When the lyrics to I Surrender All are flashed on the overhead during worship — a flash of doubt may accompany it. While reading Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard recently, I ran across his description of the steps involved in transforming the mind in Christ-likeness.

In the progression toward complete identification of our will with God's there are distinctions to be noted. First there is surrender. When we surrender our will to God we consent to his supremacy in all things. Perhaps we do so grudgingly. We recognize his supremacy intellectually, and we concede to it in practice — though we still may not like it, and parts of us may still resist it.

We may not be able to do his will, but we are willing to will it. In this condition there is still much grumbling and complaining about our life and about God. ... Still, this is an important move forward. The center of the self, the heart or spirit, is now willing for God to be God — even if with little hope or enthusiasm. Perhaps it is only willing to be made willing. But it is for lack of this minimal identification with God's will that multitudes of people are unable to understand the truth of Jesus (John 7:17). Such persons are not willing to do his will, and hence God does not open their understanding, and they cannot do so. They are left to struggle in the darkness, which they in fact desire. And they will certainly reproach God for not giving them more light, though they are unwilling to act on the light they have.

He continues with a discussion on the next steps — abandonment, contentment, and finally participation, but we will dwell on surrender for now. I have to admit that I had never quite viewed surrender in this way before, but the more I entertained it in my mind, the more it resonated until I realized that my doubts about surrender had more to do with a lack of understanding than a lack of surrender.

Consider the act of surrender from an armed combatants view. An honorable soldier forced to surrender may grudgingly concede the current advantage to the adversary, but is still looking for a way of escape. In fact, Article III of the Code of Conduct for members of the Armed Forces compels the service member to "continue to resist by all means available." Every part of our being screams out this same chorus with respect to our surrender to God. Our carnal members desire freedom, yet they are blind to the path of true freedom for His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9).

Another view on surrender comes from the insurance field. When someone cancels a policy before the death of the insured person, they are said to have surrendered the policy and may be eligible to receive the surrender value of the policy. Without stretching the analogy too far, we can choose to cancel the whole life policy we received at birth (by repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus) and we are eligible for a new policy that offers so much more.

I absolutely delight in the way the Lord opens my eyes!

The best part of this new (for me) insight, is that future forays into abandonment, contentment, and full participation with God can begin in an unshakeable footing that the accuser cannot deny. Too often before, as I would begin a fresh decision to more fully give myself over to God, I found myself slipping backwards rather than going forwards. Now, rooted in confidence, I have already experienced fresh joy, peace, and contentment in the arms of a loving God and next time the lyrics of I Surrender All are flashed on the overhead I will have confidence in my position before the throne and I will worship Him in full surrender. Praise God!

The Return of the Prodigal Son

I'm reading a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son and it has some text that I wanted to share. The author, Henri Nouwen, became intrigued by Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son, and explores how he has taken on each of the roles of the main characters. In the beginning of the book, he is dealing with himself (and us) as we act like the younger son -- the one who ran away. He first discusses the younger son as he leaves home. He compares the act of asking for his half of the inheritance as though the son were telling his father "I wish you were dead". In biblical times the father might choose to give the sons their inheritance before the his death, but the father had the right to continue using the land etc. until his death. By leaving for a foreign country, the younger son effectively reiterated his insult by denying his father's continued use. He says…

Leaving home is, then much more than an historical event bound to time and place. It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palm of God's hands and hidden in their shadows. Leaving home means ignoring the truth that God has "fashioned me in secret, moulded me in the depths of the earth and knitted me together in my mother's womb." Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one. Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.

Why would we ever want to leave this home that has everything we want. The "why" is that the world beckons to us with its voice telling us that we have to prove our worth. It suggests that we won't be loved if we don't prove ourselves worthy of love since love isn't free. We effectively "leave home" whenever we lose faith in the voice that calls us Beloved and try to please the voices that offer us a myriad of ways to win their love. At issue here is the fundamental question, to whom do I belong, to God or to the world. As long as I keep running around asking "Do you love me. Do you really love me?" I give power to the voices of the world, and put myself in bondage to the world. God desires -- more than anything -- that we stay home, but loves us too much to force that on us. He allows us to make the choice, all the while hoping that we'll make the right choice.

And yet, many, if not most of us choose to run away from home and seek after the love of the world for at least a time. We soon find that the siren's song of the world lies. The world only wants us to the extent that it can use our beauty, riches, and brains for its own use. As soon as it has used us up, it leaves us to feed the pigs. The younger son became fully aware of how lost he was when no one around showed the slightest interest in him. He describes the differences between how two of the apostles handled the issue…

Judas betrayed Jesus. Peter denied him. Both were lost children. Judas, no longer able to hold on to the truth that he remained God's child, hung himself. Peter, in the midst of his despair, claimed it and returned with many tears. Judas chose death. Peter chose life. I realize that this choice is before me always. Constantly I am tempted to wallow in my own lostness and lose touch with my original goodness, my God-given humanity, my basic blessedness, and thus allow the powers of death to take charge. This happens over and over again whenever I say to myself: "I am no good. I am useless. I am worthless. I am unlovable. I am a nobody." There are always constant events and situations that I can single out to convince myself and others that my life is just not worth living, that I am only a burden, a problem, a source of conflict, or an exploiter of other people's time and energy. Many people live with this dark, inner sense of themselves. In contrast to the prodigal, they let the darkness absorb them so completely that there is no light left to turn towards and return to. They might not kill themselves physically, but spiritually they are no longer alive. They have given up faith in their original goodness and thus, also in their Father who has given them their humanity.

But when God created man and woman in his own image, he saw that "it was very good," and, despite the dark voices, no man or woman can ever change that.

The choice for my own sonship, however, is not an easy one. The dark voices of my surrounding world try to persuade me that I am no good and that I can only become good by earning my goodness through "making it" up the ladder of success. These voices lead me quickly to forget the voice that calls me "my son, the Beloved," reminding me of my being loved independently of any acclaim or accomplishment. These dark voices drown out that gentle, soft, light-giving voice that keeps calling me "my favorite one"; they drag me to the periphery of my existence and make me doubt that there is a loving God waiting for me at the very center of my being.

It is at the point that we finally realize we are at bottom, and then remember that there is a Father back home that truly loves us, that we decide to journey back home. And yet, the decision to go home is only the first step. We often have much to overcome before we can get there.