Eliminating Hurry! Message 4: Surrendering Control
Eliminating Hurry! Message 4: Surrendering Control
“Come to ME. Get away with ME and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Take MY yoke upon you - Walk with ME and work with ME – WATCH HOW I DO IT. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. KEEP COMPANY WITH ME and you will LEARN TO LIVE FREELY AND LIGHTLY.”
Mathew 11:28- 30 Paraphrased and Message Bible
Are we in an apprenticeship to JESUS?
“Walk with ME and work with Me. Watch how I do it. Keep company with Me and you will learn. . .”
Disciple – a person who has intentionally walks and works with JESUS to pattern his life after HIM.
An apprentice is someone under a master and in a position to learn a trade, and art, or a trade. An apprentice will make mistakes but will keep practicing to be able to master a skill.
Or are we our own boss and just checking in with HIM every so often?
Ill. Maybe you did not realize this but when you decided to follow JESUS and you called HIM LORD – that meant HE was your leader, boss, the head of your life from then on! You signed on as an apprentice to follow HIM! Many only signed on for the fire insurance and not for the LORDship of changing our life!
Looks look at the wording of this covenant in Romans 10:9-10:
“If you confess with your mouth the LORD JESUS, and believe in your heart that GOD raised HIM from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
“ If you confess with your mouth the LORD JESUS . . .”
- Confess – to agree and say the same thing as GOD says.
- LORD – Master, owner, King, the Authority over my life.
Most frightening verse in the Bible is Matthew 7:21:
“Not everyone who says to ME, ‘LORD, LORD,’ will enter the realm of heaven’s kingdom. It is only those who persist in doing the will of MY heavenly FATHER. On the day of judgment many will say to ME, ‘LORD, LORD, don’t YOU remember us? Didn’t we prophesy in YOUR name? Didn’t we cast out demons and do many miracles for the sake of YOUR name? But I will have to say to them, ‘Go away from ME, you lawless rebels! I’ve never been joined to you!” Matt. 7:21 TPT
“Fifty percent of people in the church are not born again.” Billy Graham
Paul writes in such a way to help us realize we are no longer the boss of our lives if we have made JESUS LORD.
“All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything. Food is for the belly. . . Do you not know that your bodies are parts of CHRIST? . . . Do you not know that your body is the temple of the HOLY SPIRIT, who is in you . . . and that you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify GOD in your body and in your spirit, which are GOD’S.” I Cor. 6:12-20 MEV
“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to GOD’S marvelous mercies? I encourage you to SURRENDER yourselves to GOD, to be HIS sacred (SUBMITTED), living SACRIFICES. And live in holiness (SEPARATION TO HIM), experiencing all that delights HIS heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.” Romans 12:1 TPT
These are daily practices for an apprentice to JESUS:
Surrender to GOD as your LORD = true worship
Submission to GOD = constant realigning
Separation to GOD = available for HIS purposes
Sacrificing to GOD = yielding control, denying self-rule.
ill. A personal area of struggle for me is yielding control to GOD. This has revealed some anger issues that I have.
Anger can be one manifestation of wanting control!
Wherever you have areas of struggle you should locate scriptures that deal with that issue and meditate with the LORD about it. HE wants to help! Here is my right now scripture I am meditating on to find help (grace) to help in my time of need in overcoming anger.
“My brothers and sisters, take this to heart: Be quick to listen but be slow to speak. And be slow to become angry, for human anger is NEVER a legitimate tool to promote GOD’S
righteous purposes.” James 1:19 TPT
Is it helping me? So far. But as an apprentice I know I will be tested many times. The goal is not memorized scripture. The goal is a supernatural change of heart that comes from the life-giving WORD of GOD.
Verse 21 of James 1:
“Instead with a sensitive spirit (meek) we absorb GOD’S Word,
Which has been implanted in our soul, FOR THE WORD OF LIFE HAS POWER TO CONTINUALLY DELIVER US.” James 1:21 TPT
What keeps our souls from not absorbing the WORD?
Ill. Absorb like a paper towel absorbs water. (Take dry and wet towels.)
If the paper towel is already full of absorbing something else then it will not be able to absorb more. If you are full of yourself, full of anger, full of rage or whatever – you will not be able to absorb GOD’S Word.
You can read it, but it is like water on a ducks back. It does you no good until you meditate upon it with HIM.
Just as a paper towel will not absorb water if it is already absorbed something else. We will not absorb GOD’S WORD if our soul has already absorbed something else!
“So this is why we abandon (throw out) everything morally impure”
(demonic activities – see Acts 19:19 for believers to clean house).
James 1:20 TPT
“And all forms of wicked conduct (evil excesses). Instead with a sensitive spirit (meek) we absorb GOD’S Word,
which has been implanted in our soul, FOR THE WORD OF LIFE HAS POWER TO CONTINUALLY DELIVER US.” James 1:21 TPT
“FOR THE WORD OF LIFE HAS POWER TO CONTINUALLY DELIVER US.”