November 23 – Anatomy of a Surrender: Faith (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1)

“Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”
(2 Corinthians 7:1)

IN WORD:
The flesh-life and the faith-life stand in stark contrast to one another. One sends us in search of the things we think will give us enjoyment, security and love. The other sends us to God. Those two paths are so similar in their agenda that we often get them confused. Sometimes we even think God gave us our idols to comfort us. Maybe He did, but that was before we began to depend on them. Now they must go.
But those two paths are so different in direction that they cannot, under any circumstances, co-exist. We will choose one or the other. As surely as we can’t drive on two roads at once, we can’t pursue God and pour idolatry at the same time. To embrace one is to reject the other. We cannot worship God as an add-on to all the comforts, pleasures, securities, and emotional dependencies we’ve built our lives on. They must be dethroned and God must reign. It’s only right.
Faith can grasp that and let go of everything but God. People, places, possessions, pastimes — they are wonderful gifts from our Father, but they are not our treasures. He is. Only He can be. No other treasure is appropriate and no other treasure will fulfill. That’s the conviction of biblical faith. God is worth everything.

IN DEED:
Faith has the power to surrender all to Jesus, not just during the closing hymn at church but on Mondays at work or on Saturdays at home. Faith is wise enough to see through the idols we’ve constructed and to know how empty they are. Faith is discerning enough to understand: No matter how hard it seems, obedience is always the right choice, the way to receive God’s blessing, and the thing that will satisfy us most. God has designed us that way. When we try to satisfy ourselves with other things, we are reaching in the wrong direction and falling for a lie. The faith-life experiences God’s best — at all costs.

“I do not want merely to possess faith; I want a faith that possesses me.” -Charles Kingsley-