Sometimes you come across something that you aren’t able to dislodge from your mind. Below is an excerpt from Paul Tripp’s book, “Whiter Than Snow” that I hope you will read slowly a few times as you think about your relationship with Christ. I have one question that I hope you will take a moment to answer after you read it. – Jeff
“Perhaps if I give You some of my time. Perhaps if I give You some of my strength. Perhaps if I give You some of my things. Perhaps if I give You some of my thoughts. Perhaps if I give You some of my success. Perhaps if I give You some of my relationships. Surely these sacrifices will bring You delight. Surely these offerings will bring You joy. I’m quite willing to give a tithe. I’m quite willing to interrupt my schedule. I’m quite willing to volunteer to serve. I’m quite willing to do my part. But I get the sense that You’re not satisfied with a piece of me. I get the sense that momentary giving, momentary service, momentary sacrifice, momentary ministry, the momentary turning of my heart to You will not satisfy You. But I must admit that I’m afraid of what You require. I’m afraid of a broken spirit. I’m afraid of a contrite heart. I’m afraid to be crushed by Your grace. So I try to distract You with my service, distract You with my time, distract You with my money. Deep inside I know what You want. Deep inside I’m sure of what You require. I’m afraid because I want to hold onto my heart. I want to give it to other things. I want to pursue pleasures outside of You. I’m afraid to give You what would satisfy You. I’m afraid of a broken heart. So I regularly offend You with empty offerings and vacuous praise. Hoping to my own destruction that you’ll be satisfied.”
My question: So what do you think about this? Tell me in the Leave A Reply box below.
Jeff, Until I hearl you preach the sermon “Are you Willing”, that was me.Just giving Him a piece of me…… I have prayed I feel as if I have given Him everything….sometimes I wonder – then go back to Him and surrender all. I was person with “I trust you” with part of me but I still worried that I had not surrendered everything…thus feeling guilty. I am not perfect
by long stretch of the word…but I am growing and feeling more content with what He is doing in my life. I pray He will continue to work with me and develop me until He takes me home.
You’ve hit the real nail on the head, Jeff. As fallen people, we have no way to appreciate and value an undefiled relationship with Jesus. That said, isn’t a really good thing that He values it enough that ” being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Though what you say is true, I think we have to be careful not to frett too much over our incompleteness. Too much fretting can lead to discouragement, even cynicism. The Lord has us all right where He wants us: acutely aware of falling short and totally dependent on Him to complete His good work. As one of the “old guys”, I’m looking forward to that time!
quick clarification: i love the words above but cannot claim them as my own. they are taken from Paul Tripp’s book, “Whiter Than Snow”. I recommend the book to anyone and have a link to it in my opening paragraph above.
Whew! That’s like staring into a magnifying mirror with the brightest lights on. We tend to base our actions, etc. towards God on human relationships and how they have manifested themselves throughout our lives. At least I find myself doing that sometimes (many times). This morning as I prayed the very words “surrender” I felt a twinge inside. “Lord, help my unbelief!”
I’ll start….any/all of these “I’ll give you’s” is and has been part of my spiritual walk (crawl?). I find that I often try to compensate with one or more of these to try to compensate for a lacking in another. It is, absolutely, based in fear. Fear of the unknown and that the unknown might take me out of MY comfort zone. I read about people who have been called to do incredible (and sometimes seemingly not too bright) things and I think, “what if that were me?”. While questioning myself and my motives is not a bad thing. Allowing those questions to paralyze or prevent me from giving Him my best and my all is a bad thing.