What’s Left?

03/11/2007

After a Full Surrender, What’s Left?

God has me on a particular journey right now and He continues to bring people and messages in all different ways across my path to further explain what being fully surrendered to His Holy Spirit is all about. This may seem strange to some, but in my walk with God, this is how He seems to work through things with me. He takes me through His school, presents His lessons, and gives me His homework and His discussions with others, until the matter is settled in my relationship with Him--and then we start again on something new, and again, and again, and these lessons will never end until I meet my Father face-to-face in Heaven! Ahhh, what a day that will be!!

Today, I am once again in awe of God’s personal involvement in our lives, and how each person’s walk with Him is perfect because He orchestrates it. Our involvement in this “dance,” with Him, if you’d like to call it that, is to follow Him and listen to His “music,” His Holy Spirit within. Just this morning, I searched for a piece of Scripture about “unforced rhythms of grace,” that is found in Matthew 11:28 in the message Bible. A friend and I were talking about this, and it is a neat translation on a verse that many of us are familiar with in the context of, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

We all dance to the beat of a different drummer in life, and that’s okay with God, as long as what keeps us in step is that we love and accept His Son’s gift to us while we dance. That’s non-negotiable. There is no other way to Heaven, try as we might to find one, and if we decide to depend on any other plan devised by man to get there, we will be disappointed! Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one can get to the Father except through Him. Those aren’t my words, they are God’s in John 14:6, so if there are any complaints about this, you’ll have to take them to Him!! I’m going with it, because I truly believe this and I love the hope Jesus’ promise leaves us with!

Dwight L. Moody writes,
“It seems perfectly reasonable that God should encourage us by giving us a glimpse of the future. When a loved one is taken away from us, how often we ask, ‘Where have they gone?’ followed by, ‘Will I ever see them again?’ It is then that we turn to the blessed Book, for there is no other book in all the world that can give us the slightest hope and comfort; no other book can tell us where the loved ones have gone.”

Recently, I have also been fascinated with Science…okay, for me even a few days of looking at the scientific world is considered, “fascinated,” because it is so out of my realm of thinking most days. For others, like a man by the name of Stephen Hawking, it is his whole life’s work. Even confined to a wheel chair since his early 20’s because of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he still has not faltered over the years from turning over every piece of evidence he can find to see if scientists and physicists and theorists can figure out the origin of this world we live in. They work through theory after theory looking for something that seems to elude them.

While watching a documentary on Prof. Hawking’s life, I was dumbfounded as I watched he and others write out formulas that contained letters and numbers and some figures that I’d never laid eyes on before! Oh, I remember the scientific charts from the 8th grade, and something about E=MC2, but other than that, I’m lost! But, one letter did catch my eye in their figuring, and that was the letter, “G.” It stood for gravity!

I know that Jim was surprised as we would watch a bit of this documentary, then get interrupted having to go somewhere, and when we returned home, I’d say, “Let’s finish that Stephen Hawking thing.” He had to be wondering what was going on in my limited knowledge of this, knowing his wife all too well after these 30-plus years together. He knows I’d rather be watching, “Survivor” most days! But, we’d put it back on the TV, and sit and watch it together, and through it all I kept thinking to myself, “Do you see God in all of this? You’re all wondering where we all came from, how the earth began, but have you read, ‘In the beginning…’ by our Lord? It’s right there on page one.”

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness.”
Genesis 1:1-2 (NLT)

There’s your big bang theory!
There’s your black hole!
What’s so confusing about all that?

In watching this documentary, something came to light for me! Stephen Hawking has stood on his theory for over 30 years that all this came from nothing, and he would not back down. But every other scientist argued against his theory because everything comes from something, it’s an impossibility that all this just appeared. They believe that everything that is here today, was always here, it has just been evolving. Now Stephen seems to be changing his mind about his theory, but I’m staying, “Stick with it Stephen. It’s right!” How can I say that, not being a brilliant scientist myself? Because, it makes perfect sense. We can’t see God, we can’t see a Spirit, we can’t feel, touch, measure, taste, weigh, hold in our hand, all that God is, was, and will ever be…but that doesn’t mean He’s not there! That doesn’t mean the Spirit of God can’t create this world by speaking it into existence! To unbelievers, it seems to have come out of nothingness, but to believers, there is GOD!!

And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 1:3 (NLT)

God continued on to say, “‘Let there be,’ and ‘let the,’ and ‘let bright lights appear in the sky,’ and ‘let the waters swarm with fish and other life,’ and ‘let the skies be filled with birds of every kind, and ‘let the earth bring forth every kind of animal…’ and ‘let us make people in our image.’”

“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way.”
Genesis 1:31 (NLT)

“So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed.”
Genesis 2:1 (NLT)

Something out of nothing? Absolutely! Yes and No! We are here because God spoke! We are not here because there was some matter that evolved out of nothingness. God is not nothingness, He is Something, with a capital “S,” and if theorist and scientist would figure the capital “G” into their equations to be God, their theories would be facts, and they could rest…as God did on the seventh day from all His work!

After watching this documentary, a friend loaned me two other DVD’s that talked about the planet we live on and its place in the universe and how amazingly astounding it is that where we are placed at just the right distance from the sun, in just the right orbit, on just the right axis, with just the right thickness on the crust of the earth, with just the right EVERYTHING so that life can survive and thrive here, like on no other planet we have discovered thus far. And on another DVD, it went into the smallest particles that we have yet discovered through the best microscopes we have available, and inwardly, the world that exists is equally as amazingly astounding as our universe. Either way we look, it points to an intelligent Creator, not happenstance! With the recent discovery of DNA, secrets are being unlocked that we never could have imagined! And with that, even prisoners are being unlocked from jail cells 20 years later because there is now evidence that they didn’t commit the crime for which they were accused! We think God knowing every hair on our head is something…He created and knows our DNA, but in Biblical days, hairs were probably about as tiny as things got!

We think we are oh so very smart, and it is true, great discoveries are being made every day, but even in that, if our earth was not positioned at just the place it is in this galaxy, we would be in a dense cloud that would not even allow us to look up and see the stars at night! God placed us here so that we could use the minds He gave us, so that we could discover amazing things about the world He created, and in that, we could discover that we did not evolve out of nothing, but out of Him!--that we are His plan, and that we are here to get to know Him, to have a relationship with Him, and to live eternally with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth He will create!

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17 (NIV)

It was even talked about how with the known existence of black holes, it seems that live, three dimensional beings can slip into a black hole, somehow changing into two dimensional beings without dying in the process, and feeling no effects from this change. Now, don’t ask me what all this means, or to explain it further, you’ll have to get the documentary yourself, but all I took from this was…well, why wouldn’t that happen? If we are body, soul and spirit here on earth, and when we die we don’t actually die but simply leave our physical body behind as our soul and spirit go on to live eternally either in Heaven or Hell…it seems simply explained. Even the reporter, Bob Woodruff, who was critically injured in Iraq, tells the story of how he was somehow separated from his body, which he looked down on, and even though he didn’t go on to an eternal life anywhere just yet, but returned to his body, he has no fear of death after this experience. His three parts being slipped into two parts, no problem!

So, after all that, getting back to the Holy Spirit in our lives…you thought I’d gotten off track there, didn’t you…?

What’s Left to discover?
How does the Holy Spirit factor in?
He’s in the Love.

Let’s factor Him in with a capital “L” on our chart (Periodic Table of Elements)! Love. Not whether or not God loves us, because He does. That is fact. No theory there. That is clear. He created us and He loves us--but what does our love for Him look like, and how does that involve His Holy Spirit?

Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter started to get upset as he answered Jesus three times,

“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know I love you.”

Do you know what God showed me this morning as I prayed about this passage, after my “friend” Oswald Chambers brought it to my attention? It’s that Jesus already knew how much Peter loved Him, He didn’t need to ask Him the question to satisfy Himself. For the first time I saw the way Peter answered Jesus’ question…“You know I love you.” Even Peter says that Jesus knows everything, so we know that Jesus already understood Peter’s love for Him. Jesus knew Peter’s love for Him inside and out, Jesus knew the depth of it, Jesus knew it would fall short before the cock crowed three times, and it did…Jesus knew. Jesus wasn’t surprised at that, Peter was! The question really wasn’t answered at all by Peter as they sat and ate fish together by the Sea of Galilee on that day, because Jesus wasn’t asking Peter what Jesus already knew about Peter’s love--Jesus was asking Peter what Peter knew about that love--about himself and His love for His Savior, His Friend…

“Do you love me, Peter?”
“Lord, You know I do.”
Oswald Chambers has pointed out in his devotional, that what Peter needed to come to was a realization about how much he loved Jesus! That is what plays out as we read on about Peter’s walk with His Lord in Scripture!

Jesus not only asked Peter if he loved Him on that day, if we look back, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him “more than these?” (John 21:15 NLT) There they sat, eating fish with those that walked closely with Jesus during His three years of healing the sick and raising the dead, those that truly knew Jesus as a Friend, and even among those followers, those Apostles, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him more than even these…what’s Jesus getting at here with Peter? He didn’t want to know where Peter’s heart was on that day—because He already knew that--and He already knew where Peter would go in his life as Jesus told Him, “‘…when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will direct you and take you where you don’t want to go.’ Jesus said this to let him know what kind of death he would die to glorify God.” John 21:18-19 (NLT) Jesus already knew everything…Peter was the one who needed to know the depth of his love for the Lord…AND, to not just be satisfied where he was at with that because his love for Jesus seemed in line with those around him.

Oswald Chambers writes,
“The Lord’s questions always reveal me to myself.” He went on to explain, Peter “was awakening to the fact that in the real true center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus…he could never be deluded again.”
(My Utmost For His Highest – March 2nd)

God has absolutely been bombarding me lately with believers who are telling me the great stories about a “Spiritual Awakening” in their life. This could be happening for various reasons, one being that it is definitely the journey that God has me on right now, so it does come up in conversations with those I am with, but the funny thing is, even if I don’t bring it up, others will. Just at dinner the other night, we had no more than sat down and my friend started to share how ten years ago she had a spiritual awakening, and how it changed her walk with the Lord forever. Then the phone rang once again, right as I started to write this message, it was another friend who shared with me that she had had a spiritual awakening a few years back…I almost started to chuckle at the fun God was having. I try not to answer the phone while I write, but lately, God has a special call come through to further elaborate on His lessons in the middle of writing them!

I believe, with all my heart, that God is working here, in these conversations, and that through these times of sharing, He wants me to share with you that these are not isolated incidents--that what I wrote about in “A Full Surrender” is alive and active in the body of Christ, and also that it is given way too little attention in too many of His children today because we aren’t getting the word out--we aren’t talking about the Love and the Power of the Holy Spirit that comes through that Love, most times. A great time of fellowship is when the Holy Spirit is not only the center of our lives, but of our conversations as well. That’s a time of tending to the flock and of loving each other--a time of encouragement that we all need!

My friends knew that something had changed in their walk with God when they discovered the love they had for Jesus—in that spiritual awakening--but because it is rarely talked about, even among believers, it’s not well understood. Sometimes, we can even feel isolated in this awakening. That’s the work of the enemy! Jesus asked Peter about his relationship with Him, and maybe we are called to do the same today… “Peter was beginning to discover to himself how much he did love the Lord, that there was no one in heaven above or upon earth beneath beside Jesus Christ; but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord came.” (O. Chambers)

“A lot of what we know, we don't know until we think about it.”
(John Fischer)

We have to think about “feeding the sheep,” as Jesus asked Peter to. We can’t just be grazing along…1 Peter 5:2 says, “Care for the flock of God entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.” And in 1 Peter 1:22b, “So see to it that you really do love each other intensely with all your hearts.” We can be encouragers in our love for the Lord…we can talk about these spiritual awakenings, when we hear of them, and stoke the fire within!

The reason Jesus wanted Peter to realize how much Peter loved Jesus, was because Jesus knows that when people have that realization, they’re never the same again! He wanted to bring it to Peter’s attention—to not let it slip away when He ascended to Heaven, but to help Peter embrace the love he had for Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit that would soon be given to him permanently. That transformation would be something to talk about, to pass around, to enjoy, not something to be isolated in! Talk about a great time of fellowship--when the Holy Spirit is the center of our lives and of our conversations!

Jesus didn’t need a spiritual awakening, He is the risen Lord! He didn’t need Peter’s love, although He desired it…Peter needed Jesus’ love, but even more than that, Peter needed to know how much he loved Jesus because when he understood that, there’d be no stopping him on his journey of faith! He would be bold! He would follow His Lord anywhere! He could not help but to feed Jesus’ sheep!

Let my friend explain this awakening to you, from the conversation I had with her on the phone the other day…she didn’t realize that I was taking notes as she talked, but I later confessed it to her! I’m not sneaky, just always trying to listen to the Holy Spirit in whatever form He will use to get His message across, and sometimes that means taking notes while a friend is talking. (But I’ll always let you know!)

On this day, God spoke through my friend, and when we were done and I told her I had been writing down her words, she said, “I don’t even know what I just said.” I replied, “I knew you would say that, and I know you’ll be surprised when you read it…” But, God was working through her, to share His message, and when the Holy Spirit is flowing, it is supernatural, it is awesome and it sounds a lot like “unforced rhythm of grace.” It’s not to be missed!

My friend explained her spiritual awakening this way:

“…I only got bits and pieces until I realized that I do love God above all else. I wasn’t totally connected…it has made my faith so much easier…this is a lot easier than you think it is, to be open to that. I realized that I was opening myself up and letting God do it.”

Thanks to cell phones, “Can you hear me now?” we were disconnected, but my friend said while she was dialing back, she got a chance to think about this awakening in her life, which she had not given a whole lot of thought to, nor put words to…

I believe God gave us a “Selah” (pause) here, and then,

the phone rang again and our conversation continued:

“The act is total trust. You have to fully love Him above yourself. When you let the Holy Spirit take over, that is truly loving God. I had an experience in a hospital a few years ago, right outside the trauma room doors praying by myself. With my eyes closed, there was like a shock to my heart, and when I opened my eyes, the room was really bright, not like with normal lighting. I had this overwhelming peace and love inside, and that changed me from forcing God into my life, to where God became the center of my life.”

These are all the notes that I took, and this is not to say that my friend’s life is now perfect, without trial--nowhere close to that, but we talked about what had changed since that moment in the hospital of praying and opening herself up to letting God do it, and God has become the steady true force in her life, even as we can all ebb and flow in that. When we know we love Jesus, we know that God IS, and it’s our choice to BE with Him or not from that point on. We know He never changes!

“Peter, do you love me?”
“Lord, You know that I love you!”

My friend knew on this day that she loved God. If we are asked by Jesus, “_______, do you love me?” Is our answer, “Jesus, I love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind.”

Peter had an amazing life with our Lord, from walking with Him, to denying Him, and being chosen as the Rock. When Peter was freed from a prison cell by an angel of the Lord in Acts 12:11, it is written, “Peter finally realized what had happened. ‘It’s really true!’ he said to himself. ‘The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jews were hoping to do to me!’” (NLT)

In another translation, the NIV Bible, it says, “Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.’”

It seemed much had changed in Peter’s walk with the Lord from when Jesus had said to him in Matthew 16:23, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s.” And Jesus went on to tell all the disciples, “If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.” Matthew 16:25 (NLT)

Jesus wants us to find “true life.” That’s all He’s asking when He asks us if we love Him. He wants to shake up our world, shock our heart if need be, although that was my friend’s personal experience with God and ours will most assuredly be different than that…but don’t be surprised where and how God will meet you…

“After this prayer, the building where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Acts 4:31 (NLT)

Jesus wants so much more for us in this life, than we are willing to give Him of ourselves. So many times we want to work this life out in our own way, devise our own formulas, call the capital “G” gravity instead of God and try to find answers without using everything God has given us to work with. Even King David asked, “Why did the people waste their time with futile plans?” (Acts 4:25)

Science points to God, if we’re willing to see Him there. Theories can take us down a winding road with no end, and although they can be fun to sort through and calculate out, they can leave us confused and answerless…

“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
1 Corinthians 2:14

When all is said and done, we have to ask ourselves, What’s Left…or as Jesus asked it, “Do you love me?” What are we still holding onto in our lives that keeps us from finding the true life Jesus wants us all to have?

I watched a pastor on TV using clenched fists, as he talked about the things we are still clinging to in this life. From that, God gave me this little exercise as a simple way to work through realizing What’s Left… If you will, place your hands out in front of you in two upward clenched fists. Close your eyes, and open your right hand, palm up to God…take a “look” at all the things you have offered up to God in this life, your spouse, your children, your home, your finances, your health, anything of importance that God has dealt with you on in your life. Be thankful for those things that He has brought to your attention that needed to be given over to Him. Now take a look at What’s Left…what are you still clinging to in this life? Ask God to reveal it to you…the enemy may have been lying to you, telling you it was just a little thing, it really doesn’t matter, you can still have just a little bit of control in that area of your life…HE’S LYING! Ask God to help you work through What’s Left, and to help you open up that clenched fist to Him so that nothing will be in the way of you having a deeper, more intimate relationship with your Savior. It may be things we can’t see like worry, fear, unforgiveness, bitterness, ________, you fill in the blank.

What’s Left could be the very thing that keeps us from answering, “I know I love You Lord. I know that You are my everything. I have no doubt that You alone have and will continue to rescue me!”

Peter says:

“So get rid of all malicious behavior and deceit. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with hypocrisy and jealousy and backstabbing. You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation.”
1 Peter 2:1-2 (NLT)

Peter found true life when he found out he truly loved Jesus!
We can too!

“Rarely, but probably at least once, He (Jesus) will get us into a corner where He will hurt us with His undeviating questions, and we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than any profession can ever show.” (Oswald Chambers)

Praise God for His persistence!

Diane