Surrender to God – Page 4 – Pathway Journey

June 13, 2024

Spiritual Victory

The struggle between spirituality and carnality is a constant in this life. The solution from a religious standpoint is usually backwards and unproductive, which is an attempt to beat back fleshly desires with our own willpower.

It is too easy to criticize those who struggle with a problem that we do not struggle with. Those who are not addicted to drugs, may say something like. “They just need to stop it!” My response to that is, “Okay, go lose ten pounds and keep it off for a year, and come back and tell me how easy it is!”

Spiritual victory over fleshly desires is won from the spiritual side not from a beat-down of the fleshly side. I like to use the illustration of a playground see-saw. One side is the spiritual and the other side is the carnal—when one goes up, the other goes down, and vice-versa. If our spiritual life is up, the carnality goes down. If our spiritual life goes down, the pull of carnality goes up.

March 28, 2024March 27, 2024

The Executioner’s Dream

A Story of the Executioner at Golgotha by Harry L. Whitt

After their scourging, we herded the three men through the jeering streets to Golgotha. The citizens of Jerusalem hate us only a bit less than we hate them. Being assigned to the occupation force of Judea is a good point for a possible promotion but today the city is set on edge. One of the three is a popular prophet to the common people but hated by the elites of their counsel.

Finally, we are out of the bustle of the city streets and bring the three miserable souls to the top of the hill, the place of the skull. The rock outcropping resembles a skull, and today it is the place of execution for all to see.

The schemer who devised the crucifixion is to be congratulated. Nothing puts the fear and dread in occupied people as the crucifixion. It is an agonizing death to endure and to witness. I have killed countless men in warfare with sword and spear, but this is the most gruesome of all.

March 7, 2024March 6, 2024

What Has Changed? Times or People

Recently when I was preaching, I said something that really resonated with my audience. The statement I made was this: “Often people will say that times have changed. But that is not true. Times have not changed; it is people that have changed.”

The rural community I lived in as a boy was not perfect. We had a few rough folks living among us. The little farmhouse we lived in had a screen door and wood door with the top third being three panes of glass. It had a lock, but I never saw the key to it. We never locked the front door. We would sleep inside with an unlocked door. In the summertime every window would be raised and only a flimsy screen separated us from the boogey man outside.

February 28, 2024March 6, 2024

Spoiled Brats

Jeremiah asked God why the wicked prospered while the good folks suffered. It is an age-old question that God has been asked perhaps zillion of times. God answers Jeremiah beginning with this statement:

“If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, Then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, In which you trusted, they wearied you, Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5 NKJV).

If you are lost in the imagery and the history of God’s answer, let me simplify it for you. Basically, if you have struggled in good times, how will you fare when it really gets tough.

If you freak out when you forget to get your favorite coffee K-cups, how will you cope if there is no coffee?

There are many people in the United States who are suffering through terrible difficulties. I have friends right now who are going through their own hell. This post is not about those with legitimate difficulties. Bear with me, while I make the comfortable, uncomfortable.

February 23, 2024February 23, 2024

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

The phrase “fifteen minutes of fame” is erroneously attributed to Andy Warhol who reportedly said, “In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” In today’s world of Tik Tok, Reels, and Shorts, fifteen minutes is way too long.

Psychologists say that some if not many mass shooters who end their own lives by direct suicide or “suicide by cop” may be wanting notoriety. Very sad for a soul to want a moment of fame that ends in so much loss of life, even their own. It speaks to the tragedy of today’s mindset.

And then we have people on social media getting way too close to a wild animal or hanging precariously from a cliff just to capture a video hoping it will go viral so they can cash in on the fame.

November 8, 2023November 7, 2023

Earmarked for Jesus

One of the poignant hidden gems in the Old Testament is in the Levitical law. It is one of those scriptures that is often skipped over because it “does not apply to us.” Yet in it is a moving principle of love and servitude. In the Law of Moses, if an Israelite became impoverished and was sold as a slave to another Israelite, he was to serve six years and go free in the seventh year (see Exodus 21:1-2).

There was also a provision in the law, if the servant loved his master and his situation, the servant could opt out of being free. If he decided to stay forever after his six-year term, his master would legitimize the relationship before the judges and then pierce his ear with an awl against the doorpost of the house. The voluntary slave would be “earmarked” as the master’s slave forever.

November 1, 2023November 1, 2023

Struggling with Surrender

All of us who try to live for Jesus, struggle with surrender at moments in our lives. Surrender to God is not a ‘one time and done’ but a life-long journey. There are times we easily surrender and then we grapple with surrender. I would think that those who do not struggle with surrender to God have already made a dwelling on the other side, in the land of rebellion. If you are struggling, congratulations! At least you are trying.

I think I am a simple man. I like to simplify rather than complicate an issue. In the process, I may at times oversimplify something. I really do not like to quibble over words, but rather concentrate on concepts to live by. So here is my take on struggling with surrender.

I think when people fail to surrender to God, there is one of two main problems at fault. One is outright rebellion where one has the attitude of, “God is not going to tell me what to do.” The other is a lack of faith or trust in God. I would prefer to err with the last one than rebellion which puts a person on the same lane as the devil.

October 26, 2023October 26, 2023

Have You Considered My Servant?

There are two interesting conversations in the Bible between God and Satan in the beginning chapters of the Book of Job. The scene was apparently in the spiritual realm where the “sons of God” (most likely angels) came before God. Satan, a rebellious castaway angel, appeared in the same gathering. God begins the conversation with Satan about Job, “Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8 NKJV)?

I am not going to tell the whole story about Job’s trials, temptations, and then his eventual two-fold restoration. Today, I am more interested in God’s all-knowing perspective about Job.

Satan did not begin the conversation about Job. God asked a straightforward question to Satan, knowing Satan’s evil heart as his very name “Satan” means adversary. God was basically boasting about Job, saying, “there is none like him on the earth.”

October 19, 2023October 19, 2023

Parched Piece of Ground

I hear people talking about leaving a legacy and I understand their sentiment, but often it has a scent of narcissism. After all, legacy is an earthly reminder of a person’s achievements while the crowns in Heaven are thrown down at the throne of God. My simple mind tells me to just be faithful in the Kingdom of God and leave the accounting to God’s record.

In 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, the Bible tells a sin in King David’s life. He sinned by numbering Israel out of a bad motive. Instead of trusting God, he trusted the strong arm of flesh. He wanted to feel secure in the number of warriors he had at his disposal. Joab, the leader of the army, was sent throughout the land to take a census of his fighting men.

September 26, 2023September 29, 2023

Grasshopper Mentality

When Moses sent twelve spies to scout out the land of promise, only two, Caleb and Joshua, brought back a good report. The other ten were fearful of the inhabitants. This is what the fearful spies said, “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (Num. 13:33 NKJV).

The evil report of the fearful spies resulted in their own immediate death by a plague. A judgment against the older generation of those twenty years old and above would prevent them from entering the land and result in their death in the desert wilderness over a forty-year period of time. The whole nation’s entry into the promised land would be delayed forty years.

Remember the identity problem the ten fearful spies had? “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight.” What causes people to have a grasshopper mentality? These spies were looking at their own shortcomings, inabilities, and weakness; while not believing in the strength, greatness, and power of God.