Day 35 – Living as Jesus Lived

Monday August 27

One day I wanted to go for lunch with my friend – let’s call him Steve.  So I called him up and asked him to go out for lunch.  And he said, “I would love to but first I need to check with my friend Sue.”  I thought that was a bit strange, but then I reasoned, maybe they had tentative plans to meet around the same time, so I agreed.  After a little while he called me back and said, “Sue said it was ok,” so we headed out to eat. 

A few days later, I needed to buy some new tires for my car.  And I happened to run into Steve at the store and I asked him if he’d like to come with me to look at the tires.  And he responded, “Well, I would love to but I can’t really do anything until I ask Sue”.  Ok, that started making me a bit uncomfortable.  Who is this Sue girl and what’s the deal with her and Steve?  But I shrugged it off, bought my tires and headed home.

The next week, I got these sweet tickets to the football game. Steve is a football fanatic so I couldn’t think of a better guy to go with – it was guaranteed to be a riot.  So I phoned him up and asked him to come to the game.  And he replied, “Wow, I would love to but you know, I really can’t do anything without asking Sue first”. 

That was the final straw!  “Steve,” I screamed into the phone “What in the world is wrong with you?  Have you lost all ability to think for yourself?  Just make a decision – be a man!”

++++++++++++

The story of Steve and Sue isn’t real but it is a vivid illustration of the way in which Jesus lived. 

I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John 5:19

These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. John 14:24

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. John 5:30

Free will is a part of being human.  So when we give up our right to act according to our own will it means we are dying to the essence of our human nature.  And this is exactly what Jesus did.  Not only did He, as God, humble Himself to assume the form of a human being, He even chose to subjugate His human will to the will of the Father. Jesus committed to do nothing out of His own initiative but only to be obedient to do what He saw the Father doing and speak what He heard the Father speaking. 

This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.  1 John 2:3-6

Living a life of surrendered obedience is God’s heart for all those who are part of the Kingdom He is seeking to establish in His church on earth.  But if we’re honest, most of us struggle with this kind of obedience.  We desire to walk as Jesus did but we are hindered by pride and, maybe even more often, by fear.  Jesus, because he was secure in the knowledge of who He was in the Father and the love that the Father had for him, didn’t struggle to prove Himself or to earn God’s approval or affection.  So he was free to find his joy and fulfillment not in his personal achievements but in perfected obedience.  And that’s why He could be content just to watch what the Father was doing and listen to what the Father was saying, and then do likewise.  He didn’t need to do anything else

And God is looking to release us to that same simplicity of obedience.   

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!  Philippians 2:5-8

In this time of consecration God has been deeply circumcising our hearts, exposing the roots of fear and lies of the enemy and pouring in revelation of His true nature and character.  He wants, by His amazing love, to set our hearts free from the slavery to one of the most destructive forces of the sinful nature, the drivenness to ‘do’ or ‘accomplish’ something.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  Colossians 2:9-12

This process of circumcision is not meant to be only for the 52 days of this call, but God means to establish it is us as a way of life.  As we continually allow the Lord to expose and release us from the desires and drives and fears of the sinful nature, we will be able to walk in greater measures as Jesus walked: securely resting in the love of the Father, watching what He is doing, listening to Him speak and doing only what He commands us to do.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Romans 8:12-14

Heather Clark has written a beautiful song, Watching and Waiting.  Let us sing this song today as a personal declaration of our commitment to this process of God transforming us day by day to walk as Jesus walked while in this world.

Let’s pray this prayer together:  God, I thank you for all that you are doing in this season to cut me from the ties of the enemy that have bound me into doing instead of just being able to watch and listen for you and simply obey. God I ask you to continue to shine the light of the revelation of who You are and Your amazing love for me into my heart and set me free in any area where my will is being held captive still by the enemy.  My heart’s desire is to walk as Jesus walked and to lay down my own rights to my life and to walk with my will fully submitted to you.  I declare this is a new season and a new day and that this will be the foundation of my life in increasing measure from this day forward:  watching and waiting for you to speak and act, and then speaking and acting only according to Your will.  In Jesus name I pray, Amen!

Watching and Waiting – Heather Clark – Continual

Spirit to spirit we touch

Spirit to spirit we touch

Don’t pass me by

When your eyes are roaming the earth

To find those

Who trust in You

See my life

I lay it on Your altar

Again and again

Consume me Lord

I am watching and waiting for You

I am watching and waiting for You

I am watching and waiting for You

My love

Come and dance with me

To the place where we’re alone

For deep

Calls unto deep

I lift my hands

To touch Your face

For the echo of my heart

Is the sound of Your name