Isaiah 53:12 NLT
'I will give him the honours of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.'
In today’s world we are fixated with celebrity culture, fascinated by the lives of regular people living irregular lives. We are in danger of concluding that the extraordinary is desirable and attainable. Yet, if Jesus offers a pattern for our lives, we gaze on one about whom “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (Isaiah 53:2b-3a, NLT). So often we make an assumption that success and significance are joined together. Yet, Jesus reveals significance is living in humble obedience to God.
My most recent challenge has been around surrender, offering my body, mind and spirit to God to do whatever he chooses. Success is the degree to which I am happily surrendered to God. It may feel like humiliation, loss of control and eventual death; yet this is the way of crucifixion.
This approach to life challenges my presuppositions, confronts me with my fears and tests my resolve. The wonder is that the Son of God, who had at his command legions of angels to rescue him (Matthew 26:53), chose to entrust his life to God. But this meant for the first time, death was itself defeated. The devil overreached himself; was strategically outmanoeuvred. Death, the ultimate weapon of human destruction, was transformed into a vehicle that carried Christ into eternal life and brokered peace between us and God. What once we feared we now welcome, for death is the servant of God in ushering each of us into our eternal reward, life everlasting. So now, as I surrender all to Jesus, what is the worst that can happen? I am carried through death into God’s forever embrace.
QUESTION: What does surrendering your life in its entirety look like?
PRAYER: Give me grace to surrender my life to your will and purpose.
 

Released on 10 Apr 2020