Today

Today...

"I prayed a strange prayer today. I prayed that Jesus would magnify Himself in me to the utmost, or slay me. By His grace, I shall not have His second best."
Jim Elliot

the truth is, Jesus can never give less than His best. It is who He is, His character. Do you realize what kind of love for Him we need to actually pray a prayer like this with real honesty?

I desire a relationship with Jesus that is so intimate that to not have it would cause me to ask Jesus Himself to take me out because I cannot live with out Him.

or do I?

daily the same stuff, attitudes, junk, people, sin... I have always dealt with in one form or another, seem to beckon for my attention. A look or admiration of something less beautiful, something less passionate, something less wild seems to rise up in the peripheral of vision.

while the desire to die seems noble enough, the simplicity of death is evident in Scripture. Paul reminds us the importance of "dying to self" and the importance of "He who lives in me" as a reality for us to strive for.

the problem is this. For me (certainly not what Jim Elliot is saying), the menial death of wants and desires seem less a glorious death than to be consumed on the altar of God. The former has way to much for me to sacrifice, which means that I must stand a vigilant watch over my soul. The other implies a hostile take over from God as to save me from the process actually seeing me for who I really am. A lazy slug when left alone would just as soon watch the "Soprano's" as love some one with action and not just words.

so I, and most of us, pray prayers like "God change me, God, make me do better." when what He rally wants from us is to surrender and be willing to stop making excuses and dancing around with sin and laziness.

so. Today. May the less visible form of death take place. The form that takes on a surrender to His desire and not mine. After all, it is one thing to crawl up on the altar with the desire to be consumed, and altogether different to lay a part of myself on the altar and watch it burn and feel the pain as it dies.

yea. I am cool with that. As long as He is seen.