Episode 638

TODAY’S READING

Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Romans 6:16-18

Juli:

The premise of it is this idea that because of God’s sovereignty because he is outside of time, we don’t have to take that on ourselves. We get the ability and really the privilege of surrendering to God’s will. I think about my children. I have four children. And because they are children of parents who love them and want the best for them. They have the privilege of getting to surrender to whatever it is that I have laid out for the day, which truly is in their best interest, and sometimes they’re just along for the ride. That’s part of life too. But I think we as Christians, as sons and daughters of God, do have this privilege, this ability to recognize there is peace in the surrender and that the surrender is not a one time. God, I invite you into my life to be the Lord of my life. That’s important. Those catalysts are important, but we recognize that sometimes it’s a daily, sometimes it’s an hourly surrender to God’s surrender to believing that he really does have our best interest at heart and wants good for our lives. And he’s not going to leave us where we are. He is going to see through to fruition whatever good work he has gotten. So thank you. That is that’s really bust me. As you were, I kind of imagined the idea that we do surrender to something every day without us realizing it or not. We think we’re in control. 

We’re scared to surrender to God, but we are surrendered to the phone. And we’re here for 15 hours a day. So it puts things into perspective. So thank you, yeah, I think that’s so wise to emphasize that you are surrendering to something too, so you might as well not have it be a default, but instead make the choice of saying cognitively saying, God, I surrender this day to you. I surrender this interaction; this conflict is a decision is meeting all of the things that come on any given day, like God cares about that and really has seen it from the beginning to the end. Like we can’t quite grasp it. So I think it’s easy for us to forget what the sovereignty of God really means.

Prayer:

God. I just thank you so much that you do call us sons and daughters, that every single person under the sound of my voice, you hear them, you see them, you are with them, and you are for them. You are guiding them. Lord, I pray you would lead them into a deeper level of surrender, whatever that means specifically for each of them. Lord, I thank you that as we all seek your heart, we will find unity amongst the body of Christ like we have never seen before. And God that you are truly doing a miraculous work in our world here and now where you have placed each and every single one of us, and I pray, Lord, that as we surrender, as we give up our illusion of control, that we will lean into your peace into your guiding and that we will see the way it affects our world the way we are able to then go forth into the world around us to be a beacon of your love a beacon of your hope, a beacon of your peace, God as the sons and daughters of the Most High God. I thank you that you are with us and you are for us, and you will never leave us. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.