Not I, but Christ
Not I, but Christ
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24
What I believe to be the first step in becoming a disciple of Christ can be described as a total commitment or surrender of our lives to Christ. Various terms have been used down through the years to describe this vital step in the Christian's life. Terms like absolute surrender, consecration, dedication, submission, yielding and absolute surrender as I have said.
I was in a church a few years ago when the Pastor gave the invitation or altar call at the end of the service and urged the people to come forward and "get their act together" and "take control of their lives." Immediately this struck me as odd and stood against everything that I had always told people when I led them to Christ or to take their next step in growing in Christ.
It is "not I, but Christ." It is not for me to take control of my own life and somehow reform or change myself. It is a surrender to Christ and asking Christ to take control and change me by the working of the Holy Spirit. The surrendered life is not a matter of human effort, but rather of yielding to Christ and surrendering to the will of God. It is a complete yielding to the person and work of the Holy Spirit and allowing the Lord to do a work in us.
As Romans 12:1 tells us that "by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Total commitment is an act of the will when we tell our Heavenly Father that we want His will more than anything else in this world.
It was Andrew Murray's daily prayer:
"Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Thy will, that has not been ordered by Thee, or that is not entirely given up to Thee?"
It was 1974 and I was a student at ORU when Kathryn Kuhlman spoke in chapel and called us to a total surrender of our lives to God and His will. It is from that point on that I trust the will of God and His guidance. And that I trust the promise of Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
It is a realization that I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
It is a daily walk, a daily consecration and yielding to the Holy Spirit. But it begins with this decision, this commitment, of a total surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, the will of God the Father and a complete yielding to the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.
"By God's grace . . . I would live day by day that Christ may be able to do with me what He will." — Andrew Murray
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24
What I believe to be the first step in becoming a disciple of Christ can be described as a total commitment or surrender of our lives to Christ. Various terms have been used down through the years to describe this vital step in the Christian's life. Terms like absolute surrender, consecration, dedication, submission, yielding and absolute surrender as I have said.
I was in a church a few years ago when the Pastor gave the invitation or altar call at the end of the service and urged the people to come forward and "get their act together" and "take control of their lives." Immediately this struck me as odd and stood against everything that I had always told people when I led them to Christ or to take their next step in growing in Christ.
It is "not I, but Christ." It is not for me to take control of my own life and somehow reform or change myself. It is a surrender to Christ and asking Christ to take control and change me by the working of the Holy Spirit. The surrendered life is not a matter of human effort, but rather of yielding to Christ and surrendering to the will of God. It is a complete yielding to the person and work of the Holy Spirit and allowing the Lord to do a work in us.
As Romans 12:1 tells us that "by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Total commitment is an act of the will when we tell our Heavenly Father that we want His will more than anything else in this world.
It was Andrew Murray's daily prayer:
"Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Thy will, that has not been ordered by Thee, or that is not entirely given up to Thee?"
It was 1974 and I was a student at ORU when Kathryn Kuhlman spoke in chapel and called us to a total surrender of our lives to God and His will. It is from that point on that I trust the will of God and His guidance. And that I trust the promise of Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
It is a realization that I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
It is a daily walk, a daily consecration and yielding to the Holy Spirit. But it begins with this decision, this commitment, of a total surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, the will of God the Father and a complete yielding to the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.
"By God's grace . . . I would live day by day that Christ may be able to do with me what He will." — Andrew Murray
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