Your Conditions Weaken Your Convictions

Learning to follow Jesus on HIS terms, not mine. Been thinking about things for quite a while. I realize I have some conditions that I still hold on to strongly. And these conditions weaken my convictions. But thank God so much for His mercy and grace. He brought me through things that I realized I have to surrender and let go, even if He had promised me. I have a feeling that things are not over yet, but... at this moment, I'm learning to just live in the present today, with my eyes set on eternity... but not to worry about tomorrow. Not easy, but the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. :)

Yup... Christ calls us to follow Him unconditionally. Not as in forced, but as in, "IF you really want to follow Me, you gotta put aside ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that will stop you from following Me wholeheartedly." Like how Abraham had to let go of his beloved son Isaac in his heart even though God Himself had promised Abraham very clearly that his descendants would come through Isaac.

How about you? What conditions are you imposing on the Lord before you will serve Him and follow Him totally without any second thoughts, any reservations, any hesitation? If we do not surrender everything to His utter Lordship, we CANNOT be His disciples. Not I say, but Christ Himself says. That includes our dearest loved ones too. If we love anything or anyone more than Christ... we shortchange ourselves, actually.

Because only after we surrender ourselves to God, we find that He is Love... and we are actually able to love our loved ones to a dimension never imagined before. We can love them in so many new ways e.g. praying for them, serving them, forgiving them, blessing them, God helping us provide for their needs...

Then we find that we had never really truly loved anyone in the past, because we did not know what love really is. Until we met Love Himself, that is.

:)

So Jesus' words are so wise. If we surrender everything we held dear to Him... we find that we never really lost anything valuable actually. Only the dross has been removed; what was left has become purer and more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. We became like the caterpillar who surrendered himself to the cocoon...

=)

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Incidentally, this is a great post... Stop Showing God Your "But". =)