Survivor ...

There is a popular show on CBS entitled survivor where real-world contestants cooperate as well as battle each other to become the sole survivor and win a million dollars.  At the beginning the smarter players attempt to form alliances with fellow team mates, even inside their own designated larger teams.  Eventually both larger teams lose enough members to force a merger when then individual strength and skill become a larger factor in moving forward.  Generally at this point in the game, the lies escalate, and trust can save you or see you sacrificed on the altar of greed.  I wonder where I am in the game?

To be free to experience the joy my Lord intends for me requires trust.  I must trust that what He says, He means.  That the promise and delivery of His gift to me is real, it works, and it matters.  If I can’t get past surrendering self, I will never fully trust Him, and therefore never fully experience what He has for me.  And let’s face it, where it comes to surviving we are keen, observant players.  We have spent a lifetime honing skills to see us survive, not surrender.  We are inclined to eat the bugs if necessary to stay alive.  We will do most anything to preserve ourselves.  And we have a history of doing it this way.

History and habits form character, and it is not easy to suddenly put the brakes on character and do an about face.  Where it should be an easy thing to let go, and let God, neither seems realistic if given our past.  We cling to the notion that our survival depends on us, and if we allowed even God to take that role, we would somehow immediately perish.  How sad.  This is the distinctive mark that we have bought into the false assumption of control in our lives. 

We think that somehow our actions give us control.  But they do not.  We do not control our health although we can decidedly influence it.  We do not control the weather, or the earth’s responses to our pollution, even though we can influence it.  We do not control our relationships, our jobs, even our money lies in a bank hopefully shielded by our government.  We control nothing.  Yet we foolishly hold on to the idea, that somehow in spite of all these facts we control everything.

In our last discussion we discovered that to win we must die daily.  Therein lies the rub, how do I allow myself the thinking that my will, or my control, must be put on the altar daily?  I equate survival to self-control and independence; not to subservience to God and complete dependence on Him.  The American dream runs counter to every precept of Christianity.  I do not work, but yet I receive.  I do not earn my home, I am given a mansion instead.  I do not deserve eternal life and freedom, I am given it in spite of what I deserve.  I do not see value in me that anyone should love me, yet God values me personally so much He literally died to take my place, and save me from eternal separation from Him.

It is not the suicide of body I seek, but the suicide of my character.  I wish to be reborn, not into simply an altered form of sinful desires, but completely absent from them.  I wish not to leave a hole where once were loaded evil intentions, but instead to fill it with service for others in actionable deeds.  I want to want His will.  I want to want His life, His character, His perfection, even His cross.  This means that my life must have less value to me, than my deepest motives and intentions.  More important to remove impurity than to survive a slave to it.  Better death than bondage.  Better rebirth than simple death.

I want nothing of sin or evil to survive in me.  It must be pursued to the farthest lengths of my mind and soul and eradicated by the loving hand of my Savior.  I must learn total submission.  To begin I must want it, and therefore the first of my prayers to want what He wants, to need what He needs, to do what He does.  Someone once told me that if you struggled with being a horse-thief for example, it would do you little good to be forgiven for your sins, surrender your will to God on the topic, and then get up and go hang out all day with horse thieves.  The idea was that we should protect ourselves from influences that would inspire us to fall.  It sounds good, but is not needed.

The thinking that goes behind this premise is missing the absolute lack of motive.  What do you call a person who no longer wants to steal horses, even if they used to be a regular horse thief?  Reformed perhaps.  Recovering maybe.  But when even the desire to steal is removed completely, even the temptation is removed, the thought of continuing in conquered sin becomes repulsive.  The “used-to-be” horse thief can hang out with whoever, as he is made free from his former self. 

Let’s face it, every one of us is afflicted with sin, and could easily inspire someone else to commit another travesty if they are so inclined.  Even if not by intention, we often hurt each other, make each other angry, and tempt each other to do wrong.  We will likely not see in our lifetimes a time or place where everyone is in harmony.  The real world is full of horse thieves, former or practicing.  The billboards advocate us to evil, the media follows suit.  We will never be free from it in this place of woe.  But we need not be slaves to the old triggers that launched us into negative behavior.  He died to free us from all of that, including the subtle innuendos and psychological stimuli that once led to our doom.  We are to be truly free.

If only we can keep our instinct to survive out of His way.  In this, I love the prayer of the publican in the days of Christ, when he uttered … “have mercy on me a sinner.”  The publican knows his condition.  He makes no false claims of purity.  He makes no excuses for the sins he has committed.  He begs for mercy from a God who longs to give it to him, and his prayer is answered.  Our God knows our dysfunctions.  Our God knows our mental instabilities, our eccentricities, the things we think are cute about us that others may offer a different view of.  Our God can save us, despite our chemical imbalances whether self inflicted or genetically inherited.  Our God can bring clarity to the sin-sick or evil-diseased mind.  Our God can lift the veil of evil and show us His truth.  He longs to do so.

Building trust is a process as well.  Trust is not something we generally give unconditionally to anyone that asks.  Even God knows that trust must be earned.  And so He is faithful in every dealing with us, even when we change the terms, disobey, and bring shame to His doorstep.  He is a 100% God, who offers us nothing short of 100% of Himself.  He offers His love, His protection, His shelter, His comfort, His healing, and since we required it, He even offered up His life to pay our debts.  He has done everything He needed to in order save us from evil.  On the cross of Calvary came the best words in the English language – IT IS FINISHED.  To further quote Bill Gaither’s famous next line in his song by that name … “the battle is over!”

We were not meant to keep fighting a war that is already won.  We were not meant to further arm ourselves and face our demons in our own strength.  We are sheep, in simple need of a shepherd.  The shepherd fights and defeats the wolves, the mountain lions, and even our own sense of direction.  The shepherd feeds the flock, and insures it is watered.  The shepherd does ALL the work.  The sheep sit around and eat, drink, and know they are loved by a shepherd who cares deeply about every one of them.  The shepherd gladly gives up his night life and searches for the one of us, namely me, who intentionally wanders away from the flock, and finds themselves waiting to be dinner for the predators that remain in the world around us.  But the Shepherd intervenes.  He will not allow the wolf the victory over the crying, stupid, will-full, sheep.  Instead He scoops up the defiant lost battered sheep in His loving arms and carries him again back to safety in the fold.  The shepherd does not rest.  He is ever vigilant, ever watching.

It amazes me how often we think of ourselves as the shepherds, instead of our proper role as the sheep.  It amazes me how often we remove God’s ability to control our lives thinking we have a better idea or method of doing so.  It amazes me that so often we find ourselves having wandered away from the flock, and into the thicket just waiting to be eaten, when instead loving hands find their way around us, and take us home again.  We are sheep folks.  Christ is our shepherd.  Our survival has never been dependent on us, as we would have been long ago dead if it were.  We are here because of His faithfulness, not our own.  We are here, because He loves each of us.  And He wants us to see the freedom and magnitude of what he offers.  Little by little if that is how slow a sheep must go to understand it, but make no mistake His offer is larger than you are experiencing today.  His freedom is better than anything you have ever known in your life.  And best of all, it does not have to wait to begin.  It starts NOW!!!