Chapter 2
Absolute Surrender
*Luke 14:25-34 says, “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who do not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
*It says elsewhere, a couple of times, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Jesus also warns us, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” The disciples didn’t understand this at first, but we’re told that they later understood it to mean the doctrine of the Pharisees. From these few Scriptures it is made clear as to what absolute surrender is. It is absolute surrender. We can’t fancy it up. We can’t go “in depth.” It is what it is.
*To even have a little bit of the world is to neglect the entire call of God. Either we give all our hearts, or we have given nothing at all. It was Ananias and Saphira that gave the part and called it the whole. The problem was not that they gave a piece, but that they lied. It was because they wanted to look like the “super-Christians” and be lauded and applauded. The part that they held back is actually a direct symbolism of their hearts.
*Here is the difficult question: have you given all? I don’t mean that you have given your heart to the Lord. Have you even given Him your television shows? Have you even given Him your “church?” Have you given Him the hard to reach places? It is when we are required to give even these things that it is exposed whether or not we have indeed given all to God.
*When it is required of you to even give up your own opinion, how would you react? When you must forfeit your reputation for the sake of love, do you willingly and gladly speak a word for the benefit of those souls around you? It isn’t until we have this kind of a commitment that we can truly say, “I have surrendered.” We must, as Jesus did, breathe out our last and utter, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
*In this view of surrender we have two concepts presented: leaven and truth. The Holy Spirit is also referred to as the Spirit of Truth. To the degree that you love truth is the degree that you love God Himself. God is the Truth. What we must understand about truth is that it is not convenient. It must be apprehended, and even upon apprehension, it is requiring. It is demanding. Truth is difficult to love. Yet it is this requirement that God holds if we are to proclaim a love for Him.
*What do I mean when I say that truth is difficult to love? Many scholars “love” truth, but I must object. Is their love really a love of truth? Or is it a love of knowledge? We can find ourselves graduating from the Playboy magazines and the New York Times articles only to grab a hold of religious things in a secular way. To love truth will prevent this. If we merely have surrendered our morals to God, and not our whole being, then the proof will be that we will delight in knowledge and understanding, but will be far from walking within a reality and passionate life that transcends human ability.
*How can we be sure of our love of truth? The answer is within the definition of truth. To most, truth is merely statement. It doesn’t go beyond the realm of fact. To present a fact is to present the truth. Yet, the biblical definition of Truth is that it must be factual, and acted. If the doctrine of resurrection is true, then it is must surpass a claiming. What I mean is that unless we walk in the resurrection, then there is no truth in our proclamation of a resurrection.
*Why are the words of God true? It is because they are a full representation of who He is. Though a lie is not truth, there is a realm that goes beyond our categories and presumptions. A lie is not truth in the same way that a fact might not be true. Why is it a fact that a ball will not stay up in the air? Is it because science has formulas and theories to prove it? Or is it because when you throw a ball into the air, it comes down?
*If we claim promises of God, such as the resurrection, and they are only doctrinal statements and “truths,” then we are lying. We present the part as though it were the whole. The tiniest bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. You can say that you follow Jesus, but how much are you following Him while watching the television? Did He tell you to do that? Did He speak to your heart and reveal that His will is for you to watch a certain show, play a certain video game, be online, or any of the other things we do to fill our days? How can we say that we follow Him if we are only accepting Him?
*Do you understand the difference? To follow means that He will lead you. To accept simply means that you acknowledge His existence, and you “accept” that which He has done and said for you. Even our acceptance is usually a false acceptance. We don’t want to change. We want blessings to fall out of the sky. And by blessing, I mean our desires and lusts (one of them being heaven).
*God will not stand for our unauthentic mentalities. And maybe this is why there seems to be so little authority and power in our congregations. Our shortcomings to “evangelizing” the world can be laid wholly at the feet of the Church for not presenting a life that is counter of what this world teaches. Where can they go to see a life that is different than their own? It is all the same, but with a little Jesus sprinkled on. God will require their blood upon our hands, because we have not shown them a different way of living, let alone the difference between that which is holy and that which is profane.
*Jesus told the crowd, “Unless you hate your father and mother, your wife and children, your brothers and sisters, and even your own self, you cannot be my disciple.” This needs to sink in and permeate through our very beings and into the deepest depths of our souls. Are we willing to even forsake our families? If the command came, like it did for the sons of Aaron and Moses, to slay every father and mother, son and daughter, friend and neighbor, that has profaned the name of the Lord within the camp, would we be willing to take up our swords and obey the Lord? Or would it be more appropriate to say that we would throw accusations at God for being unjust and unrighteous?
*I tell you the truth, unless you have such a reverence for His glory and to do His will, you will never see the Kingdom of God in power. We need a jealousy that is beyond ourselves. We need to come to the place of selling all our possessions, and walk into a newness of life that doesn’t get its standards from this world. Most of us claim the faith of Abraham, but which one? There was Abram of Babylon, and Abraham the Hebrew. The difference between the two is everything. To Abram of Babylon, there was only a calling out from the things of this world. He was self-indulgent, hasty to the newest and greatest method and function, of great morale, but without knowing the Lord His God, and without knowing that God Himself speaks to His children.
*Abraham the Hebrew is of the total opposite. Where Abram was well liked, and had many friends and acquaintances, Abraham was a nomad. Abram had a place to call his own. Abraham had nowhere. The very word Hebrew is thought to mean “stranger.” Does that describe you? Do you feel like a pilgrim or stranger in a foreign land, where you have no true resting place, because your resting place is not of this world, but is “of the land that I (God) will show you?”
*Let us not be quick to grab onto such theological truths without asking the question of its severity. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little leaven will render the whole as untrue. Is that what God will be forced to pronounce as your life: untrue? You loved the congregations. You loved the events. You loved the programs. You loved the music and hype of the ministries. But you forsook the Lord. You didn’t take into consideration the actuality of it all.
*How sore many people will be when they find out that God requires a grade of 100% (if I can use such a metaphor) to enter into eternal life. The Day of Judgment will be a horrible day to the self-indulgent church that loves all the hype and hysteria, but neglect that which is common and silent. The proof of our illegitimate claims is in our so-called worship. When the music stops, we stop. When the sermon is over, we’re done with the “church thing.” There is no reality of change.
*People don’t walk out the door and serve one another. They don’t hold the door, or fix a meal for their family, or tip their waitress more than she deserves, or show any other act of love and kindness that require humility and patience and grace. Why? I have the distinct feeling that we don’t do these things because there is no true foundation. We want excitement, but we don’t want God. We haven’t truly surrendered, and therefore, we’re still in it for ourselves. What is the first question you ask when you get in your car after Sunday service? Do you ask, “What did you think about the message? Did you like the worship?” Or do you ask, “Was God there? Were you changed?”
*What is truth if it is not being real? The synonym for truth is reality. If our “truth” does not bring us to a reality of life, then can we call it truth? It might be a correct statement, but it is not truth. It might be correct knowledge, but it is not truth. Truth is demanding. Truth requires and changes. If our preaching and “worship” are not affecting the people, and community more than a mere hype or excitement, then it is not true.
*I am not going to go against the idea of only having songs for a service. If the Spirit shall so desire, then so it shall be done. Yet, are people changed? Do people walk away different? Or is it just another time of singing songs and getting emotional? Did God come down in the midst, and therefore bring about repentance and truth? Or was there an “atmosphere” that brought about a fuzzy feeling? We are too sentimental. We romanticize everything, whereas God is not romantic. There is a sense of romance, but it is not when you look through the eyes of the world.
*How could a God that requires His priests to slaughter a bull with their own hands, a people to be “covered in the blood,” “washed in the blood,” and “sanctified by the blood” be considered a romantic? Yet, with the Spirit, we see the romance in it. We see the beauty in it. Our problem is that we romanticize it by what the world sees as romantic. Jesus dying upon the cross has been taken into a supreme act of romance; that He loves His people so much He died for them, and that the Father loves His Son so much that He couldn’t watch as Jesus died.
*Where is the blood? Where is the gore? Where is the justice and judgment? Where is the holiness and righteousness? Where is atonement and sin? To the degree that we neglect these things and keep a romantic view is the degree that we deny Truth, and therefore deny God. A jealousy for truth will drive us to casting out all sentiment. It is when we understand Truth that we start to see what love is, and this true love coincides with the blood, gore, justice, judgment, holiness, and righteousness. Why would God need to appease the judgment? Because He loves. Yet, let us not get caught in a rut of defining love humanly, and therefore denying the reality of the cross, especially since we are called to take up our own crosses and follow Him. If we love truth, we will purge all the leaven of the world’s influence, even in our theology and doctrines. Are you jealous for that kind of a love?
*I point again to the words of Jesus, “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” This is a bloody thing. We are not required to exasperate ourselves, and do as much as possible, but instead we are called to die. Even this has become a cheap, glib word that if you say, “Come and die at the cross,” people will emotionally respond. You don’t die at the cross. You live as a martyr.
*Your whole life should be a death. Your whole existence should reflect your death and, in turn, His life. Taking up your cross is not something that you do once. It is daily, moment-by-moment, and heartbeat-by-heartbeat. The life that ends in martyrdom, and that man or woman dies with joy was a life that was lived as a martyr. Jesus didn’t die on the cross. He died in His baptism. When the Spirit came down and rested with Christ, it was from that moment that His life was not His own any longer. Where it is safe to say that it was never His own, it is also safe to presume that from the birth of His ministry, Jesus lived according to how the Spirit gave utterance.
*This leads me to a question. What was the life of Jesus like in the first 30 years of His life if He didn’t have the Spirit? I must assume, and I believe that it is true, that Jesus was obedient according to the law. And, in fact, I believe that the number 30 represents a fulfillment of obedience. That is to say, Jesus’ whole life was lived in obedience to God, and therefore, when obedience in every aspect of life had been fulfilled, Jesus started His ministry. He was totally obedient in all things.
*It was this kind of obedience that led Him to the Jordan. Why must Jesus be baptized by John the baptizer? It is because Jesus was to humble Himself, and therefore display the character of God to all men. In the baptism of Jesus, in His 30th year, we know obedience had been perfected because the character of God is displayed through Jesus. I hope this makes sense. Another word for fulfillment of obedience is maturity. Jesus had been brought to a place of maturity, and into sonship. We are born children, but must grow up to be sons. In fact, the Roman law said that you weren’t a son, and therefore an heir, until you were adopted. The number 30 would represent a complete obedience, therefore a complete maturity, therefore a growing up into sonship. Maybe that is why God the Father said, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased,” only after Jesus had been baptized.
*Obedience is not an outward thing, but inward. This is also true of truth. It is not an outward thing, but inward. Truth is not displayed by our outward lives and reactions, but by our inward character. It is this fulfillment, or perfection, of obedience and truth that leads Jesus to the filling of the Spirit, and thereafter into the wilderness for the power of the Spirit.
*Do you see how truth is the epicenter? It all comes from truth. How can we obey unless we know what is true? How can we know what is true unless we know God, and fear Him? Jesus points out in Luke 14:28-32 that people count the cost before acting. You don’t build something without counting the cost to discover whether you can afford it or not. A ruler doesn’t go to war without asking the question of if he can win. In the same way, we cannot surrender completely until we have counted the cost. If truth is the cost, are we willing to pay it? Are we willing to walk away from all that is not true, even if that means leaving our congregations and programs?
*How far are you willing to go for truth’s sake? We have on display before us the heart of God. “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Are you willing to even surrender your right thinking? Are you willing to surrender your correct theology? Are you willing to surrender your understanding of who God is? These things, though they are good, can work against God. We can love these things more than we love God. Do you love the love of God more than you love God?
*How much time is spent with Him? In your daily life, how much of it is because He has led you or spoken to you? How much more is spent as a way to fill the time by entertainment? It is only in a jealousy of truth that we will be willing and able to surrender all, and only true jealousy for truth will give us enough stamina to purge ourselves of the leaven. Unless we are willing to be purged in entirety, we are not true. Unless we are willing to be purged of our leaven, we are not jealous for truth. We are only jealous for “truths.” It is as long as we have this kind of a lifestyle that we will have no true authority. And therefore we will have no authenticity nor voice neither to a generation, nor to the principalities and powers that govern this world and generation.
*In the consideration of truth, should we consider deception also? How can we understand that which is truth, without that which is deceptive? If even the smallest amount of leaven will leaven the whole lump, how can we ensure that we will not be ones to fall into the hand of the enemy through deception? This isn’t something that I can answer. I can only give the advice that if it is true individually, it is true corporately. If there is leaven in the congregation, do not place yourself in the midst in a way to be tainted.
*If you are going to absolutely surrender all to Christ, then you must be willing to bear whatever suffering it might entail. If part of keeping yourself pure is to separate you from the congregations and all that they laud and applaud, then do it. Do not let any leaven in. If you must stand still while every one else is leaping and jumping about, then do it. If you must be ridiculed as the unspiritual one because everyone else got something out of the worship, but you stand there as a lump on a log in agony because you can see through the atmosphere to discern that all their hype is simply a sourish attempt to try and work something up, then drink of that cup.
*I get in so much trouble with my friends about this one point. I will not give myself over to soul, because it is idolatry. They would tell me, with the wisdom of the world, that I just need to enter in and separate myself from the rest of the people. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I will not smear that which God has given me. I will not taint my white robes. I will not give myself over to anything that does not express itself as spiritual, simply because I am missing out on possibly feeling God’s presence.
*I will have all of eternity to be in His presence. If there is anything that is false within the mixture of songs and dances, then I will be jealous enough over that little bit that God has given me. I refuse to let it be tainted by anything that would present itself as soul or flesh. Maybe I am being too overprotective. Yet, maybe I am being holy. I would rather have God judge me for my deeds than to fall into the hands of men, and submit myself to their advice for the sake of not looking awkward.
*It is in this that I must ask the question: why is it that you would rather possibly submit to a dubious kind of act than to be found out as a stranger in a foreign land? It doesn’t have to be in the area of music, but even why do you submit to the formulas and the traditions? The Protestant believers are more Catholic than they know. We have our way of doing things, and heaven forbid some one comes in who is filled with the Holy Spirit and protests our way of doing them.
*In the grand view of things, I can understand the argument. What other example is there? To where do we turn to find the “correct method?” Even in this wording, we are searching for the wrong thing. We haven’t surrendered our methods and formulas. We might be willing to try something new, but we are not willing to stand up with our faces out and no ground to stand on. What are we so afraid of? Are we afraid that the Holy Spirit won’t guide us? Are we afraid that without our traditions and methodologies that God won’t really move in our midst? Then how foolish we will look!
*It is better to show yourself as who you are: empty and without understanding. At least then if people get offended it is not because you have deceived them. Why not let everything be out in the open and bear? What shame could it possibly bring? And even if it does bring shame, would the glory that shall be granted for our honesty not be greater? Give me one group of people who are willing to submit themselves to that kind of a humiliation, and I will show you the glory of the book of Acts played out in our day. We haven’t truly surrendered, we haven’t submitted to truth, we have made the part stand for the whole, and we play games with God. Yet we still expect to be blessed. The word of God still says that it is humbling ourselves and repenting before God that brings healing to the land.
*I end with a simple cry to you to forsake that which you have held on to for so long. Just as Jesus was pleading with His Jewish brethren to forsake their Jewish traditions as salvation, I plead with you to turn from the traditions of men. They cannot save you. They cannot free you. As long as you are placated upon these things that are not authentic, you will continue in bondage (such a bondage that you don’t even realize you are bound.)
*Jesus Christ, will you save us? Will you give us life as you have promised? Don’t let us entertain our own judgments any longer. Let us fall to the ground prostrate, for we have fallen so short of your glory. You wish to restore us to an apostolic glory. Let this permeate through our hearts and lives. Holy Spirit, may you speak to our hearts and reveal to us where we have fallen short and played upon the wisdom of men instead of relying on you? Will you expose us to the deception that we have gladly bore in the name of trying to help others and bring the spirituality of others up? Give us guidance and gently bring us to our knees with repentance. Do it gently, because I fear that I might not be able to bear the anguish of seeing my heart in whole. Help us, O God, for only you can help. Only you have seen the iniquity that has been done. Expose our hearts and give us the grace to repent and be converted.