I was going to write "Bonk!" in the heading, but it was more like a "WHAM!" or a "BAM!" A garage door came down on my head last night. That aluminum ridge frame part of the door is solid. It's a good thing I have a thick skull!
:?)
Something got caught in the track for the garage door, which pretty much buckled and bent the whole "system" when the opener was closing the door last night. We got the car out of the garage and wanted to get the door closed so that we'd be secure while waiting for repair. This minor incident has helped me dedicate my life to the Lordship of Christ. I look at a mishap like this and can get despairing. I'm trying to work late on deadline, we're trying to organize an office move, and then this happens. A repair like this can hit the pocketbook pretty hard, and part of me is like, 'Great! I really felt like spending x-amount of money on something I didn't need an hour ago.' But I've gotta move on. I can't let myself get consumed with 'what if's' and whatnot. But I really wanted to make my attitude be in the right place. I don't want to be a slave to money. Money can consume us so easily.
Making Jesus Lord is both a step of faith and a practical thing. Telling Him in prayer that He is in control, and surrendering your will and circumstances (and magazine) to Him is a conscious thing we can do, even though they are words spoken to someone invisible to our earthly eyes. This is the faith part. When you talk to God, you want to be real. You want to mean your words. You don't want to look back later and regret a weak or false promise. The living it out part of His lordship can be quite practical. It's just living by the word or doing what you said you were going to do. This can work itself out in many number of ways.
It's interesting to read 2 Corinthians 5 today. Verse 5 refers to the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity) as a "deposit" that was "given us...guaranteeing what is to come."
It's interesting that God keeps giving Himself for us. His Son, Jesus, was given to us as a ransom, a payment for sin. His Spirit was given as a deposit or guarantee that our salvation would come, that the work would be finished.
"So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due Him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men... For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him Who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at January 11, 2006 09:58 AM