“He must increase, but I must decrease.” {John 3:30}
“Failure with Jesus?” How can such a thing exist? How can one fail with Jesus in your life? But we do, all the time. We fail because He’s really not the one that’s in control but we are. We like to say, “Have your way Lord Jesus in my life,” or “I give my all to You, Father,” or even “Jesus take the wheel!” But then at the onset of our day, we take off with a minute-by-minute scheduling of our day. We know what we’re going to do from the minute we open our eyes to the time we put our heads on our pillows at night. We pretty much know what’s going to happen with our daily schedule. Oh, we might fit Jesus in with an hour of prayer with Him, or an hour of Bible reading and reflections, or maybe an hour of visitation with people to talk about the Lord. Maybe we’ll even write a blog or two about Him. But when it comes to planning our day, we plan it, not Him. That’s how we fail with Jesus: We’re in the driver’s seat, not Him.
When it comes to really letting Jesus have His way in our lives, we’ve got to give up control. That’s how it is. We’re no longer in control but He is. We give it up. It means when we open our eyes in the morning we say to Him, “Father, what’s your plan for me today? What would You have me do?” Scary isn’t it? Very scary. None of us like this idea at all. Just think of the unthinkable possibilities of where that day is going to go if we really have Jesus in the driver’s seat instead of us. It’s very scary and very unnerving. We like control. We like to know the outcome of our days. Truth be told, we’d prefer to know minute by minute what happens to us from the time we were born to the time we take our last breath. We want to know everything. But it’s not so with the Lord. With Him we walk by faith, not by sight. He must increase and we must decrease. If we want to be victorious with Him, we commit every work and every plan we have in this life to Him. We ask Him to take over and tell us where to go and what to do. If that means He has to take over our minute-by-minute schedule in this life, so be it. He takes over and we give up control. We trust Him and we love Him, even when it feels like things are spiraling out of control and nothing is making sense or working out in our lives. We leave it to Him because we believe in Him and love Him. Because we know that,
“…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” {Romans 8:28}
When you love someone you don’t really care what happens to you. I have done stupid stuff because I fell in love. You yourself might have done stupid stuff because you fell in love. But at the end of the day anything “stupid” we do for the Lord that doesn’t make sense at all in our minds and in the eyes of the world, ends up being right and good in the sight of the Lord. We follow Him only, and not ourselves or how the world thinks things should be. Jesus’ world is upside down compared to ours. There are many things that will not make sense. Take for example the crazy idea of loving our enemies and doing good to them that despitefully use us and take advantage of us. Sure, we nod our heads and it seems very noble to love our enemies when we read the word of God, and when we sit in church and hear the preacher preach that thought to us. But the minute someone close to us says something that hurts us, we are quick to hurl back insults to them. If they say something stupid or do something mean, oh we can think up of a lot of things we can do and say to get back at them. And to think, they’re not even our enemies and we’re failing big time in loving them back. How much more will we fail with those that hate us? So you see, God’s ways are upside down to ours. It’s never going to make sense in the carnal mind. This is exactly what the scripture tells us,
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. {Romans 8:7}
So whenever we say we want God to be in control of our lives, it means we better be prepared to give up control. Even to a point where He takes over our schedule minute-by-minute and He tells us what we are going to do with it. We don’t plan our plans, He plans it. We say to Him, “Father, here are the things I need to do today. Here are the things I must get done today. Father, how shall I accomplish them? How shall I schedule this day for Your glory? Let Your will be done in my life and not my own will.” That’s it. And if it means our plans will not happen at all but He has a completely different plan for us that day, so be it. That’s how it’s going to be if we truly want to be victorious with Christ. We give up control. We will trust Him to guide us step by step on how to live our lives for Him, because we are no longer the ones that are in control, He is.
At the end of the day when we love someone so much that we want to give up our lives for them, we want to do what they would have us do. We want them to be pleased with us. We want them to have a real say in our lives. So it is with Jesus in our life. Jesus is everything to us. He means the world to us. Without Him we are lost. We cannot make it. We don’t want to live this life without Him. We understand how it’s like to be loved by Jesus and how to be forgiven and saved by Him. We know what it’s like to be delivered by Him. We owe Him our lives. We know His way of loving could never be compared to anyone who has loved us in return on this earth. No love can ever be compared to Jesus’ love for us. No other love. We understand that deeply in our hearts. So we give up control and do things His way, because we desire His will and plans in our lives. We want His thoughts and His ways to be a part of every waking moment of our day. We don’t care about our lives anymore. We’ve given it up to Him. We find our true meaning in living through Jesus Christ. He is our everything. He is life to us. We find the true expressions of ourselves when we give up control to Him. In Him we live and move and have our being. We know the true meaning of living when we finally give up our lives to Him, because He is truly in control.
If we want His love to flow through us and take over us, we must follow His leading. We commit all things to Him. We obey what the Holy Spirit is prompting us to do and we take heed to His instructions, even if it doesn’t make sense to our carnal mind and to what the world thinks. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, what matters is what Jesus thinks. Because when we love Him and we trust Him, we know that whatever happens, He will work all things out for our good. There is peace. There is rest and victorious living with Jesus Christ when we truly follow Him and we let Him have control of our lives.
Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. {Psalm 37:5}
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. {Romans 8:12-17}
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. {Mark 8:35}
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. {Philippians 4:13}
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You so much Father for Your great and undying love for me and for my soul. I love You so much Lord. You mean the world to me. Please Father, I pray Your grace and mercy upon my soul today. Help me to truly follow You. Help me to give up my life to You everyday, letting You have the say in the way I should live in it and in how I should schedule and plan each day. I commit everything to You for Your glory. You mean so much to me and You are my life, I want You to be glorified in my life. Please Father, help me to give up control to You. Help me to deny myself, pick up my cross and follow You. Help me to decrease and lift You up and make You great every minute of my day. Please take over my heart, take over my soul, and take over my life. I pray all these things Father, in Your most wonderful and powerful name, Jesus. Thank You, Father. Amen.
