SWEAT
VERSUS SURRENDER
BREAD
4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them
this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the
gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John
baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit.” 6 So when they met
together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the
kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them: “It
is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own
authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth.” Acts
1:4-8 (NIV)
11 “Believe me when I say that I
am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence
of the miracles themselves. 12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what
I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am
going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son
may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. 15 If you love me, you
will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and
will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John
14:11-18 (NIV)
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The
words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. John
6:63 (NIV)
4 Remain in me, and I will
remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you
are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5 (NIV)
13 From heaven the LORD
looks down and sees all mankind; 14 from
his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth-- 15 he who forms the hearts of all, who
considers everything they do. 16 No
king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great
strength. 17 A horse is a vain
hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. 18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in
his unfailing love, 19 to
deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. 20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. Psalm 33:13-20 (NIV)
21 At that time I commanded Joshua: “You have seen with
your own eyes all that the LORD
your God has done to these two kings. The LORD
will do the same to all the kingdoms over there where you are going. 22 Do not be afraid of them; the LORD your God himself will fight for
you.”
Deuteronomy 3:21-22 (NIV)
6 “Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in
the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the
left. 7 Do not associate with
these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or
swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. 8 But you are to hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have until now. 9 “The LORD
has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has
been able to withstand you. 10 One
of you routs a thousand, because the LORD
your God fights for you, just as he promised. 11 So
be very careful to love the LORD
your God.” Joshua 23:6-11 (NIV)
BUTTER
“The condition for
gaining God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.” Andrew Murray
“Total
surrender to ‘the love of Christ’ is the only thing that will bear fruit in
your life. And it will always leave the
mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal
holiness.” Oswald Chambers
“The
greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.” William
Booth
“Jesus is the One who shows us the
paradoxical route to meaning in a chaotic and hostile world. It’s the paradox of the gospel: Strength is
found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found in surrender….
God uses the frustrations of this life and the hurt of relationships to compel
us to look beyond what we can control to the God who controls all things in
order to woo us to himself. As we move from control to surrender, we move from
chasing the wind under the sun to embracing God above it.” Dan Allender
“Even though we are now in faith, the heart is always ready to boast itself before God and say, ‘After all, I have preached the law, lived so well and done so much that surely He will take this into account ‘. We even want to haggle with God to make Him regard our life, but it cannot be done. With men you may boast, I have done the best I could...If anything is lacking, I will still try to make recompense, but when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home. Remember to appeal from justice into grace. But let anybody try this and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter a thing it is for a man, who all his life, has been marred and has worked righteousness to pull himself out of it with all his heart would rise up through faith in the one mediator. I myself have been preaching and cultivating it through reading and writing for almost twenty years and still feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something so that He will give me His grace in exchange for my holiness. Still I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace, yet I know that this is what I should and must do.” Martin Luther
“It costs much to
obtain the power of the Spirit: It costs
self-surrender and humiliation and a yielding up of our most precious things to
God; it costs the perseverance of long waiting, and the
faith of strong trust. But when we are
really in that power, we shall find this difference, that whereas before, it
was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hard
things.” A. J. Gordon
“Contrary to the
world's beliefs, the spiritual fruit of self-control does not come about
through the discipline of self-mastery, but rather through surrendering
ourselves to God's control. None of us fully have the power, capability, or
wisdom to master our own lives. You cannot resist all the temptations that are
hurled at you, control the behavior of those closest to you, or limit the ideas
that pop into your mind. What you can do is surrender your life to the Holy
Spirit. You can control how you respond, yield, and submit to Him.” Michael Youssef
“The risk of grace is that we turn our lives over to God. Abandoned. Surrendered. We no longer have to defend ourselves because we are convinced that he loves us so much, but we no longer try to run our own lives. He is our Lord, our master, and the one we follow. We don't know where he will lead, but we are willing to go there because we are convinced that life in him is truly the Grand Adventure. We don’t know what he will ask us to do, but we’re willing to do it because we’re sure he knows best. We respond to him like a loved child responds to his mother [or his Grammy I would add]. We may not understand everything, and we may ask a million questions, but when we don’t get answers, we still trust our Heavenly Father because he has proven himself to us. . . The deeper we press into the price Christ paid to rescue us, the more we’ll be amazed by his love, and we’ll delight in honoring him all day, every day.” Tim Clinton & Josh Straub
“We
have heard the modern expression, ‘Don’t fight it – it’s bigger than both of
us.’ Those who submit to the will of God
do not fight back at life. They learn
the secret of surrender, of yielding to God.
Then He fights for us!” Billy Graham
“Guard your heart zealously - not to simply
keep it in a particular pattern or habit by merely following a rule or
regulation – rather to keep it responsive to each breath of the Spirit. He is to lead, we are to follow.” BHY
HEART SAVOR
- · Eternal works are only done through Christ’s power dwelling in us. Works of the flesh God will never own.
- · I am to be still and to be strong and wait on the Lord. God’s will done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.
- · He is the Rock – His works are perfect and all His ways are just. A very faithful God, Who does no wrong – upright and just is He.
