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Completely His
Victoria Boyson
www.boyson.org
Are you experiencing the chaos of
divine sifting? Do you feel you have lost control and are confused by the things you see God doing in your life? Be assured He loves you and you are very dear to Him; He is drawing you into Himself.
God is sifting many
in His church. Those who are close to Him and who live for Him are being broken by Him so that, through them, He may serve the church. We are being broken and spilled out and poured at His feet. He is breaking us and using our
brokeness to strengthen His church.
If you have been experiencing this sifting, then let the Lord have His way with you and He will use it for His glory and your good. As you sweetly surrender your life into His hands,
be assured that He will use you to purify His bride. The more we are sifted, the greater our love for our Lord will become; and the more effective we will be to influence those around us.
Two Masters?
"No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other" (Luke 16:13).
Quite often, while we endeavor to serve our Lord, we
may find hidden in our hearts a desire to serve our own agenda. We undergo an unconscious desire to serve "self" while serving Him.
Yes, we want to serve God, but at what cost are we willing to serve
Him? Will we love not our lives even unto death? Will we put our obedience to Him first even above our desire to be well thought of by men? To be understood by them? To appear respectable to them? To have their good opinion?
Indeed, we may say like Peter, "Lord, with you I am ready to go both to prison and to death!" (Luke 22:33). And yet, like Peter, be unwilling to be ridiculed by men for His sake. We unknowingly think, "Take my life, but not my good reputation."
However, at the cost of obedience to His Father, our Lord experienced great humiliation. He was not only looked down on, but was utterly hated. He was hated to the point of murder by the religious leaders of His day. He
chose not to compromise His obedience to His Father in order to please the pharisees, even when he knew it meant His death.
He was completely given over to absolute obedience to God. Truly, He served the kingdom of
God and not the kingdoms of this world. His obedience cost Him everything. But did it? What is everything?
If we try and save our lives we will lose them and, if we give up our lives, only then will we truly live (see
Matthew 16:25).
What a torment to live for Christ yet serve the idols of "self." How awful to live for the Lover of our souls only halfway and, worse yet, to try and make Him serve us or our agenda.
Our
Lord says, "I wish that you were cold or hot" than lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16), because He knows what a great torment lukewarmness can be. He says He will spit us out of His mouth if we are lukewarm. On the surface,
that sounds like He doesn't love us at all, but indeed, it is the height of His love for us.
It is incredibly difficult for Him to hand us over to what He knows will hurt us tremendously: the fulfillment of our
own will.
When we desire to love Him, but yet we still long for the good opinion of men - to be respected by others - that is torment. We are paralyzed and will never totally please God or man. By serving two
masters, we are double minded and will be destroyed in our attempt to walk with Him. It is only by letting us go "serve our other master" and getting burned by that "master" that He may gain our heart
entirely.
As He said to Peter, "Simon, Simon behold Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your
brothers" (Luke 22:31-32).
It was only by allowing Satan to sift Peter that He was able to use him to strengthen his brothers. He needed to be purged of all that was in his heart that would compromise his faith:
his heart's hidden agendas.
Like Peter, we all have our own hidden agendas that the Lord needs to sift from our hearts. A desire for wealth, respectability or for notoriety or privacy. We all have something of
"self" that must be destroyed. Something that causes us to serve it to a degree and will hinder our ability to serve God completely.
The Blessing of Brokeness
It is only when we are sifted or broken
that we can love Him with our whole heart. Only then can we be wholly His. Therein lies the blessing of brokeness. To have more of Him in our lives and to give ourselves completely to Him is the most fulfilling aspect of being alive. Indeed, to love Him is the only reason to live; any other reason will leave us disappointed and feeling empty. He is our only reason for living.
So, to have Him more, we must truly desire brokeness, sifting and purging of self. Not that we can try to produce brokeness of ourselves, but let us pursue a continual abandonment of all the things in our lives we feel
will "save" us. To keep nothing from Him is the only way to have Him.
To the rich man in Mark 10:17-22, when he asked how he could serve God better, Jesus replied, "Go and sell all you possess and give to
the poor." Jesus wanted to know to what degree this man belonged to Him by requiring "everything." Sadly, He found the man was not able to let go of "self" to have more of Him. It was his ability to
obey that God wanted to determine. Did he want God enough to obey Him to that extent? Would he be willing to let go of what was keeping him from completely serving God?
God will not force us to obey Him. He will not
force us to want Him. But if we truly desire Him from the depths of our hearts, then we must be willing to abandon our lives. That is the only way we will truly save them.
The only way to save our lives is to give Him control of them!
If we maintain control of our own lives, we will, at best, serve Him half-heartedly and become lukewarm, living a wretched existence. To know Him and the beauty of His glory and be unable to experience Him is
torment indeed. To serve two masters is impossible; we will, indeed, love one and despise the other.
More than likely, we will love men and despise the things of God. We may even serve the church, but despise the deeper
truths of God - looking on with contempt at those who experience Him to a greater degree with hidden jealousies in our hearts. Yes, we will hate what we desire to love! We cannot serve two masters!
Jesus is the Stone
Choose you this day who you will serve! Jesus is the stone which the builders rejected. He is God! We will either be for Him or against Him. It is our choice who we want to rule over us - whether we want to win or lose. Will it be God or Satan?
"Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust" (Luke 20:18). The only way to save our lives is to relinquish them to the Stone. We must
voluntarily fall on the "Stone" or the "Stone" will fall on us and we will be scattered like dust.
To live for Him is the only way to live. Anything less is not worth living for. We must choose to
give ourselves completely into His care - to serve Him and Him alone, even if it costs us everything.
And really, what is "everything" any way? "Everything" is nothing when compared to His glory!
Let Him sift you, beloved, that you may be made completely His and that you may be filled with Him completely. Truly, it is more wonderful having one Lover and to love only Him.
Oh God, make us Yours and Yours alone! We want only You. Let nothing of "self" remain.
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