Dying to my rights....

dying to my rights

I am finally almost over a very strange and unfriendly disease I had for the last week...and can actually update the world again!

After I got over the initial "fever and chills" stage of my ailment, I gained the motivation to pick up a book by the founder of YWAM, Loren Cunningham. It's called, "Making Jesus Lord" and it spoke a lot about giving up your rights. As an American, this seems very unnatural. My culture has taught me that I have inherent rights and they must be protected at all costs. In fact, I would go as far as saying most Americans are obsessed with their individual rights. While it is true that I do have basic, God-given rights, clinging to these rights can actually really limit God from working. There were several really good points:

1) When I surrender my personal rights to the Lord, for His sake and the sake of the gospel, I discover the secret of inheriting the whole world for Him. 

2) We have to be willing to give up the money God blesses us with if we want to spread the gospel. God has actually equipped Christians with the resources necessary to fully evangelize every single person in the world who has never heard about Jesus. Just reflect for a moment on the following facts: 

·                     It would take each Christian only one dollar to place a Bible in every home on earth.

·                     There are 2,000 unreached ethno-linguistic groups in the world. If only 40 million Christians gave one dollar a year, we could support two missionaries for each of these groups. 

·                     There are 16 million refugees in the world, according to most sources. To feed every one of those refugees, it would only cost the 1.6 billion who call themselves Christians one penny a day. 

3) We have to be willing to give up our right to marriage and a family. Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37) 

4) We have to give up our right to being comfortable. I may not always have the best clothes, the most comfortable place to sleep, or the foods I enjoy the most, but God will provide my basic needs. I need to continue to praise him for whatever He chooses to bless me with. 

Jesus said, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" Mark 18: 34,35. 

If there is anyone in history who knew how to lay down his rights, it was Jesus....he gave it all, even his own life!

When I look at my own life, I can see how God is asking me to give up all the above. I remember right before I left for YWAM, God seemed to be speaking a very strong message to me. He kept bringing up John chapter 15, which speaks about abiding in God in order to bear good fruit. Within a window of a few days, this message spoke so loudly to me! It was the topic of a bible study that week, I kept reading it in my bible (not deliberately either!), and then it came in a chocolate wrapper…..you know those dove chocolates that have a message on the inside of the wrapper? Well, I just so happened to open up one that said the following: “let your light shine-the world is watching”. The even crazier part is that this was quoted from someone named Darla from Antioch, TN. Think that is pretty crazy? Yeah, I thought so too. God even can speak through something like chocolate, go figure!

At the time, I really didn’t know what all this meant. Was I not bearing good fruit? Was God saying I was a branch that would be cut off and thrown into the fire? I really didn’t think so. I felt that this was a message I would be able to fully understand later on. God has a way of telling me something ahead of time that doesn’t really have clarity until later. This was one of those messages.

After the first few weeks here in YWAM Mazatlan, I understood. I am going through an intense pruning process…..Jesus has been asking me to give up my rights! In John chapter 15: 1-2 it says, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more”. God has been asking me to give it all up to Him so that I can bear fruit for his kingdom. Until I fully surrender my rights, there will be things in my life that are getting in the way of God. I have to be willing to give, surrender, sacrifice, and bow before his throne over and over and over….I desire for His glory to shine brightly through my life and for nothing to get in the way of that. The pruning process is not easy. In fact, it is very very painful. Yet, I know God is a good God! He will bless me back tremendously.

I recently had a staff member pray for me. She really encouraged me because she said Jesus sees how I keep trading in all my silver….and he gets super excited because He can now give me the gold he has yearning to hand over to me! It all comes down to this: making Jesus Lord is about serving Him first, casting down my idols, and giving up my rights in order to put all the glory back on Him. It is then when I will witness how much fruit comes out of that and how God’s kingdom can shake nations through my life!!! I don’t know about you, but that is super exciting to me. Praise God!!!!!!!!