I write and talk a lot about following Jesus. His ways aren’t always popular with our world (especially lately 😳).

And sometimes I get called judgmental…

It’s honestly surprising to me.

I guess I’ve always assumed those who are called judgmental would be those who feel superior and believe they, themselves, have done nothing wrong.

And I know, for me, that’s so VERY FAR from the truth.

If you only knew how messed up I truly have been.

For so long, I knew the way to take, but I chose to go my own way.

And it was miserable and probably part of the reason, I try to share about the better way.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think there was a God when I was choosing to go my own way.

For as long as I can remember , I have known about Jesus. Oh, like many, I tried to convince myself He wasn’t real and I deserved to have my best life now because this life was all there was…

But I could not discount the evidence for His death, burial and resurrection. (For more of this check out The Case for Christ(Strobel).

But the thing is, I’m not talking about cognitive belief, because if you give it much thought, most reasonable people will arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is God.

But the problem, my problem was, maybe your problem is, Jesus was not my LORD.

For years, and I mean YEARS, I kept trying to have a little Jesus and a little world. I’d cycle into sin, then promise myself and God that I’d never do that again…until I did IT again.

I continued to go my way, I continued to try to make myself happy UNTIL I realized could not make myself happy.

The truth is, none of us can make ourselves happy. WE CAN’T FIX US- No drug, no relationship, no gender change, no career change, no spouse change, no weight change… no “you-name-it”change will bring lasting happiness.

And often our quests for happiness actually leads only to less happy and more misery.

Unless, and until, one day, WE GIVE UP trying to fix what we can’t fix.

AND, in SURRENDER we realize, not only, that there is a God, but that we are not Him!

PEACE COMES IN THE SURRENDER.
ONLY IN THE SURRENDER!

HOPE is birthed when we come to the end of ourselves and our way, and surrender our lives to something, Someone, greater than us.

He is higher, His ways are better and He is all-good.

What’s incredibly more is that Jesus is the LOVE our hearts have been longing for.

He knows every bad thing we’ve ever done, or said, or thought and He still chose to love us and die for us.

He loves us that much, but He will not force Himself on us.

But nothing else will satisfy us like Jesus. He is so much more than a religion!

He is peace and hope and joy that does not change with circumstances. He loves us with an unending, perfect love.
And, we can truly trust Him, more than we trust us.

And we can lay down our burdens, run to His arms and SURRENDER to His ways….

His ways—those things He says in His Word, that we used to think were to restrict us, or keep us from fun, are actually how He guides us to His best for us.

And when hard things come, we begin to understand He can even use those things for good when we run to Him with them.

When we SURRENDER them to Him too…

As we do, He can turn our messes into a message.

He Who is in us, the One worthy of our surrender is stronger than he who is in the world-the evil one, the real enemy of our souls. (1 John 4:4, 1 Peter 5:8)

And if we look back, we can see the battle that the enemy has waged to keep us from the sweetest of surrender…surrender that yields life and life more abundantly! (John 10:10)

Oh to know the Lord in real relationship as Savior and Lord.

It comes through surrender.

Sweet surrender.

KimJaggers.com

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