To Be The Given…

Tears run down my face as I try and articulate the stirring that Christ is doing in me.  How do I put words to the life-changing work of Holy God?  I struggle to comprehend.  How can I ever explain?  Words are far from adequate when one feels a holy change beginning.

God has reached down from heaven high, to touch the heart of human man…my heart, your heart.  He humbled Himself to lowest extent, Creator God becoming the lowest of all creation.  Why?  To fulfill a plan… the only way… to redeem this ugly mess that sin had grossly stained.  He came not just to give us life, but to BE LIFE.  He came not just to give us redemption, but to BE THE ONLY WAY.

It is when I stop and purposefully focus – when I stop the clamoring of the world in order to breathe deep and allow His grace to fall fresh on my wildly beating soul.  It is then that I begin to understand the depth of His love, the grandeur of His sacrifice, and the holiness of His design.  He came, not just to give OF Himself, but He came to BE the GIVEN.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:17).

Jesus came, not just to give us the Gift of salvation, but He IS the Gift of salvation.  How did I not see this before?!  Changing this verb into a noun changes my entire life’s purpose.  For you see, if we are called to be like Jesus, if we claim to be “followers of Christ”, we must follow Him in His greatest moment, and live lives that are GIVEN in complete service to the King.  We must die to ourselves, so that HE can live in us.  Galatians 2:20 tells us I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Again, I hear God say, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  How do I do this, Lord?  How do I glorify You in my body?  I am realizing that I am not my own.  What is it that you are calling me to do?

And then, in the stillness of morning, as the light breeze stirs heat of the sun beating down, I hear Him whisper His grace across my heart,

 ”Be the gift.  Don’t just give OF yourself, but BE MY GIFT TO THIS WORLD.”

Be the gift.  And in that moment, light floods my thoughts and a thousand splashes of color light up the quiet of my day.  My life is not meant to be spent giving a little here and giving a little there.  My life is meant to be lived out, GIVEN all.  This is purpose and this gives breath to my earthen vessel. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:5-7).

So, I bow low and let the tears run freely down.  Show me, dear Lord…show US, how to live lives GIVEN ALL.  Empty us of ourselves…all of our flesh and desires and passions and goals and dreams…and fill us with only YOU.

Today’s Challenge: What is standing in the way of you surrendering all in order to live a life GIVEN ALL?  Spend some quiet time this day asking God to comb through the recesses of your heart until all is uncovered.  What are you holding tightly to that hinders the Kingdom work of Jesus Christ being completed through you? 

Jesus prayed in John 17:20-26:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,

I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Jesus lived to make the Father known.  Oh, Friend, that we may do the same.