The following statement can be a challenge when the Holy Spirit is requiring something in my life:
WHAT GOD TAKES FROM ME, ‘TIS GAIN TO LOSE!
Our Loving Heavenly Father is righteously jealous towards us and desires to remove the things in our lives that we place more value or focus on than Him, and thus impair our intimacy with Him.
The first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3
Whilst certain relationships are obviously ungodly and need cutting off, other relationships between family and friends need to be set in order if I am putting them before God, living to please them first, rather than God, whether my motive is to “keep the peace” rather than do what God requires, or to please them out of an inordinate affection. If I love someone or something more than God, it is inordinate, and our Heavenly Father wants to bring balance to our relationships and lives. He is jealous for that first place in our affections. Jealousy is so wrong in our lives, but God’s jealousy over us is righteous because He wants the best for us. He knows the things that block us from walking in His provision of our divine destiny of fullness. Behind God’s jealousy over us is His bountiful, faithful, unchanging love, (Romans 8:37-39)…..that love that will not let me go!
If God strips me, He will clothe me with His beauty.
If God tears, He will heal.
If God breaks down, He will build again on a right foundation.
When I am an empty vessel, He can will fill me with the Indwelling Christ.
It matters not where we start from, it is how we finish that counts. Our trust is not in our own works and capabilities but in the Living God! He is the author and finisher of our lives in Him….”Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,” Philippians 1:6. God is a finisher! He will work with everything I give Him. It is me that limits the work when I withhold that which God requires from me to place in His hand to finish His work in me. To be placed again on the wheel of the divine Potter is not to be feared, but welcomed. There is no safer place than to be in God’s hands, as He makes afresh the vessel that was marred.
Our Lord Jesus is the meaning of life. When other things take precedence they distract me from the Lord and have to be removed from first place. God, in His love, takes the things that distract me from Him. When I have nothing I realise I have everything I need in Jesus. As He restores me He also teaches me how to hold His blessings and all things in life to His glory, not mine!
David Livingstone, the missionary used greatly by God to Africa, kept a little white goat with him for the milk it produced for a stomach condition he suffered. At one point, so the record states, Livingstone entered into covenant with the leader of an African tribe. The covenant required the Chief and Livingstone to exchange tokens to symbolise the sealing of the pledge. The Chief gave Livingstone his coveted spear as his token. When Livingstone asked what the Chief required from him, he was filled with dismay at his answer. The Chief pointed to Livingstone’s little white goat and said, “That!” Livingstone highly valued the goat as his lifeline to health and trusted in it, but he had to surrender it in covenant.
What is “the little white goat” in my life, in your life, that God requires us to surrender? Some may know already, others may have to seek God to find out…..but rest assured we all have one….something or someone we place more trust, more focus on than our Heavenly Father.
Let us remember, WHAT GOD TAKES FROM US, IT IS GAIN TO LOSE….because He has something better for us.
Surrender is a sweeter path than compulsion!
