Daily Devotional
Word of the Day
Lordship Not Hardship
Pastor Scott
Thursday, March 03, 2005
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"...Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."
(Hebrews 12:1)
Are you thankful every day for the work of God in your life as He continually reveals your own heart and vileness to you? Instead of getting bummed out and falling into self pity, just thank God when He reveals your heart to you. Say, "Lord, thank You for giving me a glimpse. Thank You for loving me, not for my worth, but for Your sake, because You are love. I don't merit it, but I receive it by faith and grace." We continue on and are made strong. We don't expect others to have to perform to receive our love and our forgiveness because we can love as we've been loved and we can forgive as we've been forgiven. We become humble and compassionate servants who are touched with one another's feeling of infirmity. The fact is we are all messed up and we all need help. Are you willing to be helped? Are you willing to see yourself for what you really are? That's what the cross is all about. You will never get a glimpse of yourself until you are on the cross.
"[Jesus] humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). A lot of people like to hurry on to verse 9: "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him..."
"Praise God, if you'll humble yourself, God will exalt you."
Why don't you just forget about exaltation? If you are striving to die for the purpose of being exalted, you're not dead. If you're looking past the cross for personal gain, then the cross is just a symbol to you and not a goal. The fact is you remain on the cross. It's a daily process.
You say, "We all have our cross to bear. Mine is my husband." "Mine is my job." "Mine is my genetic deficiencies." That is not the cross; those are just little hiccups and inconveniences of life. The cross is not about hardship; the cross is about lordship. Cross-bearing is not the difficulties of life and how heavy life has become. The cross is about coming to the place where you stop trying to carry your own life and your own burdens. Jesus bore our burdens that we might bear others.
"[We need to] lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race...before us" (Heb. 12:1). What are these weights and these sins but the fruit of self-will, personal ambition, goals, and the over nourishing of the self life to the defeat of the spirit man. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these [two] are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would [do]," the apostle tells us (Gal. 5:17). The flesh can't do what it wants to if the spirit man is being fed and preeminent and the one that we choose to acknowledge as lord. But the spirit man can't do what it would when we choose to honor the flesh. What is that power of volition? What is choice? Choice is the fruit of lordship; and self will always choose self. Jesus as Lord of your life will always choose the Spirit. Volition (choice) has to be made once and for all to surrender to the Spirit of God and to the lordship of Jesus. I don't choose any longer; I obey. I have nothing to say about this. Are you going to work today? Are you going to love your wife? Are you going to train your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? When Jesus is lord of your life, those decisions have already been made for you.