No Matter the Cost.

What is holding you back? I’m not talking about what’s holding you back from your dreams or your “success.”

What is it that just won’t let you move forward in your relationship with the Heavenly Father? Have you made your time with God a monotonous to-do list?

You tell yourself you’re doing all the right things but you just don’t feel His presence. You believe you’re listening, but He’s just not guiding you like He promised.

If you relate to this, maybe it’s not about what you are doing, but what you’re not surrendering. Jesus tells us that if we want to be His disciple (follower, apprentice, representative, a “Christian”) we must first:

Deny ourselves, Take up our cross daily, & Follow Him. (Luke 9:23)

Maybe what's holding you back is that you are trying to hold onto yourself... Your own desires. Your own dreams. Your own feelings. Your own self-proclaimed identity.

Maybe for you, you’re not willing to take up your cross... You’re not willing to lose a job, status, friends, family, your reputation, even your life, for loyalty and faithfulness in your relationship with Him.

Maybe you’re not willing to follow Him... Into a career you don’t think you’re cut out for. Into a friendship you don’t want to manage. Away from a relationship that is beating you down. Into a life you don’t think you’re worthy of. Into the unknown future of where it might lead. If this sounds too extreme to you, then maybe you’re not cut out for it... not yet, at least.

But if this hits home, then surrender.

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Your life is not yours at all.

Remember, your life is not yours at all. You didn't think yourself into existence. You did nothing to cause your first heartbeat. And even though your parents played an important role, they couldn't sovereignly force life into you.

Your existence, your body, your mind are all complete and total gifts from the One who made you. He knows you. He loves you. He is for you.

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Silence yourself. Pour yourself out at the feet of Jesus as a drink offering. Count everything as loss in order to gain the surpassing worth of knowing the Christ. Be palms up & open-handed to suffer the loss of ALL things and count them as rubbish, in order that you may receive and be found in Christ.

Remember, it is NOT because of any good deeds, internal goodness, or positive thinking that you have manufactured or done on your own that He will fill you. It is ONLY His gracious and merciful nature that grants us this gift. And He chooses to do so through our active faith in the sacrificial love He displayed on a cross some 2000 years ago. Quit trying to earn your way into His love. Quit trying to think your way into His favor.

Let go of you.

Let go of you.

Surrender ALL of yourself to the One who delicately knit you in your mother’s womb.

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Submit totally to His will.

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Quiet your heart.

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& follow where He leads ...no matter the cost.