Glad surrender
Your word is a lamp to my feet,
And a light to my path. Psalm 119:105
Read Luke 12:42—48
This is slightly gruesome. For the slovenly slave it is. It is a sorry miscalculation on his part, to think that he can indulge his own brutality at whim, and not attend to his master’s business. Yet for all the strength of the warning, it’s not the fear of consequences that usually moves me to devotion. A story like this rather serves to tell me how utterly inappropriate my life is if it is not wholly devoted to the Lord. Whatever I keep back for myself is lost. But what really draws me to willing faithfulness is the Lord’s faithfulness to me. A sense of duty won’t do. An abounding thanksgiving will. When I remember, in these times of prayer, that my Lord and master held nothing back, giving his life for mine, what alternative do I have but to find his purpose and to live it? In the process of living in his purpose I will discover even more of him.
Dear Lord, when I call you by your name, ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ even to name you, even to name who you are, even to acknowledge what you have done for me, even to believe and declare that you have given yourself for me: to say who you are I must say that I am yours. I am, truly (though I am not always true) your servant. And therefore your will is my bread and butter, my nourishing. Your will is mine to do. Let me embrace gladly what I know this night that you are asking of me.