—Julian of Norwich

Have you surrendered to God’s love for you? I have to admit, this is one of the greater challenges in my life: to simply believe the Lord loves me. So today I turned to Ephesians 3:14-21 and prayed it out loud, stopping as the Spirit led, to embrace the glorious truths found in these seven verses.

So, here is my little assignment to you: for one week, pray this prayer and ask God, your Abba who delights in you, to inscribe each sentence on your heart. Then conclude your time with the simple statement, “Lord God, I choose to surrender to your love today.”

Pause right now and do just that, will you?

 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

                                                                                             —Julian of Norwich

Have you surrendered to God’s love for you?

I have to admit, this is one of the greater challenges in my life: to simply believe the Lord loves me. So today I turned to Ephesians 3:14-21 and prayed it out loud, stopping as the Spirit led, to embrace the glorious truths found in these seven verses.

So, here is my little assignment to you: for one week, pray this prayer and ask God, your Abba who delights in you, to inscribe each sentence on your heart.

Then conclude your time with the simple statement, “Lord God, I choose to surrender to your love today.”

Pause right now and do just that, will you?

 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

Psalm 103:1-5

 O my soul, bless God. From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name!
   O my soul, bless God,
      don’t forget a single blessing!
 He forgives your sins—every one.
      He heals your diseases—every one.
      He redeems you from hell—saves your life!
      He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
      He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
      He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. 

Ephesians 1:3-8

How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I’m so grateful to Christ Jesus for making me adequate to do this work. He went out on a limb, you know, in trusting me with this ministry. The only credentials I brought to it were invective and witch hunts and arrogance. But I was treated mercifully because I didn’t know what I was doing—didn’t know Who I was doing it against! Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me. And all because of Jesus.

Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One—of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off—evidence of his endless patience—to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever.

   Deep honor and bright glory
      to the King of All Time—
   One God, Immortal, Invisible,
      ever and always. Oh, yes!

                                                                                                      —Puritan prayer

When I read this prayer, my mind recalls one memory after another of God’s gracious work in my life over the years. Just pause and reflect on your own redemption and forgiveness; the instances when strength was imparted at the perfect time or wisdom given at just the right moment. Our minds are like sieves; they leak, and we forget the many ways the God of the universe has literally shown up just for us.

Reminding myself of his past kindnesses gives the hope and faith I need today to trust him with my very present hurdles.

Wasn’t that exactly what the young David did as he faced Goliath? You remember the story recorded in 1 Samuel 17. David was aghast at the timidity of Israel’s army, quaking in their boots as the giant Philistine taunted the army of God twice a day for 40 days. Undaunted by the size of Goliath, he told King Saul that he would gladly fight this monster for the glory of God. All Saul could see was a boy standing before him. He knew nothing of David’s dependence on God’s past faithfulness.

I love how The Message puts David’s faith-filled response: “David said, ‘I’ve been a shepherd, tending sheep for my father. Whenever a lion or bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I’d go after it, knock it down, and rescue the lamb. If it turned on me, I’d grab it by the throat, wring its neck, and kill it. Lion or bear, it made no difference—I killed it. And I’ll do the same to this Philistine pig who is taunting the troops of God-Alive. God, who delivered me from the teeth of the lion and the claws of the bear, will deliver me from this Philistine.’ Saul said, ‘Go. And God help you!’”

Well, you know how it all ended up: a grand victory for Israel and one more memory David would need of God’s love and kindness toward him.

Mercy.

 How badly do we need mercy?

 Dictionary definitions of mercy include “refraining from inflicting punishment or pain on an offender or enemy who is in one’s power” and “a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion.”

How about taking the next seven days just to ponder God’s mercy and praise him for it? Read each of the following texts. Pause. Remember the places his mercy has reached in and healed. When the scripture includes a person, put yourself in that person’s place, adding the personal details of your life.

Psalm 28: 6-7

Psalm 86

Mark 5:1-20

Mark 10: 48-52

Luke 17:11-19

Luke 18:9-14

Romans  11:33-12:2

                                                                                                                            —Henry P. Liddon

One of the main prayers of my life is for a large, tender heart. Do you know what I suffer from? A shriveled heart. A disconnected heart. Yes, a hardened heart.

That dried-up heart of mine was exposed a few days ago. A few days ago, for crying out loud, should you expect that my troubles are few and far between!

I was engaged in a “hard conversation.” You know what I mean…feelings hurt, intentions misunderstood, words spoken that I wish I could take back. I definitely did not have a godly response. I pulled away emotionally, isolated my heart from engagement because blame-shifting held sway.

But the kindness of God led me to repentance as I asked the Lord to grow my withered heart and fill me with his Spirit. Confession and forgiveness were extended and received. Peace was restored. Hope reigned.

You know I love all the Psalms, but the 51^st may be in my top five. It’s unrefined. Honest. Gut-wrenching. No one can read this confession without relating at some level. We are awed by its candor and strangely soothed by its presence in the word of God. Why? It’s a psalm for every man, every woman.

As we face hard efforts, sacrifices, and difficulties this summer—wherever we may travel—let’s choose to allow God to grow our hearts to be tender, pliable, and humble. Certainly, we will arrive at our ministry assignments in the fall increasingly prepared to be Christ-like witnesses.

                                                                                                      —O. Hallesby

How refreshing. How inviting. For so long I thought that my helplessness was a reason to stay away from God. I thought I needed to be strong,

confident, and full of faith to approach my heavenly Father. I thought I needed to at least suggest a few ways he could answer me—you know, kind of giving God a little advice.

How very wrong I was. It is the helpless, the needy, even the ones who are so low they cannot even mouth a prayer who attract the attention of our Abba. Let’s revisit a favorite passage of mine, and maybe yours as well, Hebrews 4:14-16:

Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him]. For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it] (Amplified Version).

Aren’t you awestruck by what is revealed here? Jesus understands our weaknesses, infirmities, and the ongoing assaults of temptations. We are literally invited to come to him in our raw conditions. We can open up to him our pockets of shame and brokenness and allow his love to heal and soothe.

Will you do that right now? Will you quiet your soul and close your eyes? Recall the many places in the gospels where Jesus approached the lame, the blind, and the wounded. In what shameful, broken places do you need to experience his love? Thank him that you can come to the throne of grace in weakness to find grace.

In many ways, you still want to set your own agenda. You act as if you have to choose among many things, which all seem equally important. But you have not fully surrendered yourself to God’s guidance. You keep fighting with God over who is in control.

                                                                                                   —Henri Nouwen

I grew up fighting. I got in fights at school, at summer camps, and in my home. The ones within my family were the hardest. My father was a demanding perfectionist who was very hard to please. He had a propensity toward name-calling. I was consistently referred to as being “stupid,” “fat,” “no good,” and other words that really cannot be repeated here. I learned to fight back. If he called me “stupid,” I headed to the file that contained my report cards and showed them to him, retorting, “Stupid people don’t get these grades!” I would then be grounded for the weekend, but I didn’t care—fighting made me feel as if I still mattered and had control.

My tendency to be a fighter did not go away the day I asked Jesus to be my Savior. I hear stories of people who trust Christ, and instantly all their nasty habits just evaporate. That certainly was not the case for me. God’s grand plan for conforming me to the likeness of his Son involved a long process of my learning to surrender to his will and not fight for my own. It has taken time—time in his word, time in prayer, time in confessing, time in repenting. How has God changed your life?

The New Testament character, Saul, was a fighter, too—bent on destroying the new Christian church. He was known for his brutal ways with men, women, and children. It was his life mission to defend traditional Judaism with intimidation and violence. But God had another plan and pulled off an amazing miracle by saving this fiery crusader and channeling his passion into the furtherance of the gospel. There is not a great deal recorded in scripture about how God developed him through a transformation process, but almost immediately we see the same determination and fervor, but this time to preach Christ. He had a new Master he surrendered to, and his whole life changed, even his name, now Paul.

My changes were not quite as dramatic but certainly as life-changing. The process isn’t finished, but God is teaching me to surrender to love, to put my dukes down at the pierced feet of the one who hung for me—out of love. Love has softened me, quieted me, and helped me to rest in God’s good will for my life.

Who is in control of your life—yourself or God? Do you want to live out your plan or God’s? Read John 15. To surrender is to abide in or make our home in him. The better we know him, the easier it is to simply abandon ourselves to his care.

“Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.”

                                                                                                                                                      —Psalm 36:10

                                                            -David Brenner

Help me, oh God, to surrender to the depths of your love and to release my fears that hold me back from believing your forgiveness could reach even me. I accept your invitation to get off the treadmill of good works in the vain hope of earning your salvation as long as I am “good enough.”

I am newly aware of the subterranean chambers of my soul where fears have lived unchallenged for decades—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of life’s demands, and fear of being misunderstood. They have left me spiritually handicapped.

The time has come to expose them and ask you to come, as you did to the disciples in the storm, and say, “It’s all right…I am here. Don’t be afraid” (Mark 6:50 NLT).

Your word is clear: “Perfect love expels all fear” (1 John 4:18 NLT).

You are the inexhaustible source of love. Teach me how to lean into you—into your love—and to embrace grace.

I pray in the sweetest name I know, Jesus.