According to AI, surrender is the "highest expression of trust, not passivity, but actively letting go of personal agendas, fears, and the need to control outcomes.” In church today, we’ll be discussing surrender through Jesus’ instruction to take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23). This is about dying to ourselves and moving forward in following Jesus.

That’s actually what He says - that it’s for those who would follow Him. If we’re going to go along with His ways, our will is going to have to be left behind. You can’t go your way while you’re trying to follow His. You can only go down one path.

Fortunately, the path that Jesus has for us is good, and we should be doing what AI talks about - actively letting go and exercising our highest expression of trust. And even in the middle of a fast, you can still find rest on a Sunday. His day. The day we remember when Jesus walked out of His tomb so we could follow Him right out of our own.

In Christ,

PD

In Matthew 9:15-17, a group comes to Jesus with some questions. They notice the Pharisees fast. They notice that John the Baptist’s disciples fast. So why aren’t Jesus’ disciples fasting?

So Jesus asks a question Himself: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” And then, He uses illustrations of using new cloth to patch old fabric and making wine in new wine skins. So what’s He saying?

Not only is He explaining that when He is present with the disciples in the flesh they should be celebrating, but He also points out that when things are new, we can’t do the same old stuff. Rather, old practices must be renewed. So the disciples wouldn’t be fasting the old way because things were changing and they required something fresh.

With the Law, the burden of righteousness was on those who were following the Law. You might say their righteousness needed to be earned, and so fasting was seen as a way to earn God’s favor. Of course, we eventually learn that the true purpose of the Law was to reveal to us that we can’t earn it, which means we needed something different.

Today, we don’t fast to earn God’s favor, but as a way of dying to self so that we might be closer to God. And since it’s the weekend, you might experience that a little bit more. I sure do. Fasting during the week when I’m distracted in the office is much easier than a weekend where I can get bored and I lose the opportunity to ask, “Would you like to go to lunch today?”

But that’s okay - and even good - because we should deny ourselves. Spoiler alert, this Sunday we’re talking about surrendering to God as a part of our repentance process. We’ll be looking at Luke 9 where Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

So this weekend, let it be our joy to deny ourselves in whatever we’ve committed to God.

In Christ,

PD