One of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard closed with these challenging words, "Why should we come to Jesus Christ? Not for our own benefit. We should honor and serve and love and give our lives to Jesus Christ even if we were to go to hell at the end of the road...because He is worthy!" (Paris Reidhead, Ten Shekels and a Shirt, www.sermonindex.org )
It's amazing how the act of 'surrender' can become all about us. A woman once wrote me an e-mail expressing her hurt and confusion because she made a bargain with God -- "If I surrender my dreams of romance to You and live in purity, then I expect You to eventually write a beautiful love story to me." And since it hasn't happened yet, she feels that God has let her down.
Christ loved us without expecting us to love him in return. As he lay dying on the cross, those He had come to save were mocking and spitting in His face. Can we love Him the way He loved us? Can we surrender everything to Him without expecting anything in return?
I have discovered throughout my life that our Lord cares deeply about our dreams and desires of our heart, and He takes great joy in meeting them in His own perfect time and way. Surrendering to Him is not drudgery, but delight. As we abide in Him, He changes and shapes the desires of our heart to match with His desires for us. As it says in Psalms 37:4
Following His pattern doesn't leave us with a second-rate version of life on this earth, but far more glorious, beautiful, and fulfilled one. And yet, even though having the specific desires of our heart fulfilled is very often a byproduct of surrender to Christ, it cannot be our reason for poring out our all at His precious feet. Our reason must be passionate love for Him, with no strings attached.
12 years ago
we are sin, I can’t understand that because:
ReplyDeleteIn Islam we think that we are not sin, but we make mistakes. But if we return to Allah and ask him for forgiveness, He will forgive us:
http://quran.com/39/53-56
http://quran.com/2/159-160
If we are sin then the kids when they die, they should go to hell. In Islam our prophet said that (in the meaning of) “every child is Muslim by his nature and his parent who make him Christian or Jewish…”
Then we believe that every child when hi die he go to paradise
Allah did forgive Adam and Eve about their eating from the forbidden tree
http://quran.com/2/34-37
Allah will not blame us if the others did bad things, even our parent.
For example, if my father kills someone, did I will go to jail in his place?
Then Allah doesn’t need a sacrifice of his messenger Jesus PBUH to forgive humanity.
http://quran.com/4/156-159
http://quran.com/6/164
http://quran.com/17/13-15
http://quran.com/35/18
http://quran.com/39/7
http://quran.com/53/37-44