Life in Christ is a process. A process that He means to bring to completion, but that completion cannot come about without our submitting to it. Sadly, too few of us ever do.
Shane Idleman offers up a simple prayer that I want to expound on in this writing. He cries out to the Lord, "O God, take me, break me, make me." That's a process and it can only be realized by us when we yield ourselves up to Him. Are we willing to submit to the process? All of the process?
Shane Idleman offers up a simple prayer that I want to expound on in this writing. He cries out to the Lord, "O God, take me, break me, make me." That's a process and it can only be realized by us when we yield ourselves up to Him. Are we willing to submit to the process? All of the process?
Are we willing to invite Him to literally "take us?" This means that we allow Him to take hold of us on every level of our being. There is nothing that is held back. Our past, present, and future. Our dreams, our hopes, our desires. All that we have and all that we are is given over to Him. Everything about us, families, marriages, livelihoods, ministries, is given into His hand to do with as He wills. This will involve a total trust in Him to place in His hands and heart all the things precious to us. Do we dare, this day, this year, to invite Him to fully take us?
The next step is frightening. We ask Him to "break us." Break us in every area of our lives that is walking against His Light, His will, and His purpose. Break us in every area of pride that exists in our hearts. Break us in our love of self that always dulls our love for Him. To break all the hardness of our hearts and all that this hardness does to cause pain to others and to ourselves. To break us of our determination to have our own way so that we may be fully yielded to His way. Again, do we dare, this day, this year, to ask Him to fully break us?
The last step is one that will never cease, even into eternity. It is the invitation that He will now "make us." Make us into all that was in His mind when He created us. Make us ever more deeply into His image, the image of Christ. We are His to do with as He pleases as He shapes us upon His potter's wheel. This too can be painful as His hands apply pressure in the shaping, but we trust that as He shapes, He does so with perfect love and we trust His heart in the shaping. We become and continue to become what He created us to be.
As I said, it's a process and He calls us to it. Will this coming year see us yielded to it, or kicking against it? We know of the miracle that Jesus did with the broken bread. This year, will He be able to do miracles with and through us in our brokenness in Him?
Blessings upon you in this New Year,
Pastor O
Pastor O
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