In the School of the Spirit, what kind of pupil am I? Have I learnt that if I walk in humility, I will learn more quickly and reap the benefits of this choice. The greatest benefit will be getting to know God as my loving Father, instead of just knowing about Him. Our relationship will become one of personal fellowship through Jesus Christ, His Son.
There may have been occasions when we have made wrong choices for a variety of reasons. Only God knew the real motive for those choices. It may have been through fear, selfishness, spiritual immaturity, or plain disobedience. In the book of Jonah, chapter 1, we read how Jonah tried to run away from God. God gave him a commission to go to Nineveh, a great city, and call the people to repentance. Jonah disobeyed and tried to flee from the “presence of the Lord”. He tried to run away from God! How can you hide from an omnipresent God?
He attempted to flee as far away as possible from Nineveh, but God cornered him in the belly of the whale, where he finally felt compelled to repent.
Consider this: Yielding (surrender) destroys the impetus of compulsion!
God gave Jonah a second chance. As we read the three brief chapters of the book of Jonah, we find much to learn and identify with. Jonah portrays a man with a heart out of order. His concerns were for himself whereas God had a heart for the Ninevites and wanted to give them opportunity to repent of their wickedness and turn to know Him, which they did. The love, longsuffering, mercy and grace of God was granted to a repentant nation, whereas Jonah had to be compelled to obey God. He became God’s mouthpiece to a wicked city that received the word of the Lord and repented.
In the final chapter we find Jonah still disgruntled with God and His mercy on the city, whereas we would have expected him to have joined his heart with the Lord’s and rejoiced in God’s mercy. How easy it is to see Jonah’s faults! Is my heart united with God’s, or am I still hanging on to the right to myself? Self rule is independence, pride, the position that God resists me in. 1 Peter 5:5 “……..all of you be subject one to another. Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”.
It is futile to attempt to run away from God. It is futile to attempt conditional surrender. We follow in the steps of the Master. Even Jesus was brought to the position as He agonised over His forthcoming death, “…..nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done”. (Luke 22:42) We will never have to go through what Jesus secured for us at Calvary, but we do have to make right choices. Opportunities daily present themselves for us to surrender our will in relationships, preferring others before ourselves, (Philippians 2:3). As we surrender our will, the Life of Christ is released through us, the Life of Another – Christ in you, the hope of glory!
Surrender is always in the now. As we learn to walk in humility, it can become a lifestyle. There is a position in humility and surrender where we are no longer ever searching for the will of God, we can become the will of God in unconditional surrender. In this position Jesus’ Life is lived through me and demonstrates: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”. Galatians 2:20
In spite of ourselves, God’s mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness, declared by the psalmist, to all generations. Why make our bed in a grave of doubts, fear, disobedience or rebellion when God has made a way through His Son, Jesus Christ, to live a glorious life in unity with His heart and mind! The more we recognise the daily choices to surrender, we will face it and anticipate it with joy!
So……wave the white flag all you soldiers of the Cross!
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash