{"id":6817,"date":"2020-03-03T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/?p=6817"},"modified":"2020-03-02T22:03:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T03:03:07","slug":"heavens-great-risk-reward-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/heavens-great-risk-reward-promise\/","title":{"rendered":"Heaven's Great Risk\/Reward Promise"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\u201cGod will often deliver us in a manner which seems, initially, to destroy us.\u201d \u2013 Daniel Defoe<\/blockquote>\r\nThis is one of the most helpful and instructive quotes I have ever heard. It is the essence of an eternal perspective, which is essential if we are to be in touch with reality as we live our Christian life.\r\n\r\nThrough this foundational truth, we conclude that the risk we might fear the most\u2026 giving up complete control of our lives to God\u2026 is actually the doorway to the highest reward in life.\r\n\r\nBut it\u2019s hard for me to do.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 C.S. Lewis said, \u201cThe terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self \u2013 all your wishes and precautions \u2013 to Christ.\u201d\r\n\r\n<strong>Our natural strategy for happiness<\/strong>\r\n\r\nBy nature, I want God to make my life on earth go better.\u00a0 I want to be nice and good, work hard and be smart, and as I do, call on God to bless my well-laid plans\u2026 so that with my effort and a little help from Him, my life on earth will be healthy, prosperous and happy.\r\n\r\nBut for me, that plan has never worked.\u00a0\u00a0 Things are always going wrong.\r\n\r\nWhen things begin to go wrong, my instinct is to grab hold of things\u2026 to try to increase my control of life\u2019s circumstances, and try to do for myself what God in His \u201cnegligence\u201d (as it feels) has failed to do for me.\r\n\r\nGod, of course, takes objection to my response, and in His severe mercy, begins to pry my controlling fingers off that which I\u2019m clutching.\u00a0 And as He does, I am left with one of three options\u2026\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Live in fear of Him<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Live in anger toward Him<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Submit completely to Him<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<strong>The supernatural strategy for happiness<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I submit completely to Him, I discover that \u2013 hard as it might be - the option that I feared the most is actually the doorway to the life I long for.\u00a0 My greatest dread\u2026 giving up self-determination and willingly submitting to God\u2026 is the very doorway to the supreme treasure of life.\r\n\r\nThe Bible teaches this clearly, of course.\u00a0 But instinctively I resist believing it, because self-protection, self-advancement, and self-fulfillment are the core motivations of my natural inclinations.\r\n\r\nThe Apostle Paul spells it out in Romans 12:1.\u00a0 \u201c<em>I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you <u>present your bodies a living sacrifice<\/u>, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship<\/em>.\u201d\r\n\r\nThen he appeals: \u201c<em>And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect<\/em> (Romans 12:2).\u00a0 Becoming a living sacrifice leads to a renewing of the mind which leads to a transformed life.\r\n\r\nThat which we want most, a transformed life, begins with becoming a living sacrifice.\r\n\r\nA living sacrifice <em>chooses<\/em> to die.\u00a0 It is not killed.\u00a0 And choosing to die goes against all natural inclinations.\r\n\r\nLike rappelling off a high mountain cliff, your brain might reason that you are safe\u2026 that the rope will hold you.\u00a0 But your emotions are screaming for you to turn around and run.\r\n\r\nSo it is in the Christian life.\u00a0 We understand the point of Romans 12:1, we just have a good deal of difficulty putting it into practice.\r\n\r\n<strong>God\u2019s primary goal<\/strong>\r\n\r\nYet it is the primary thing God is doing in our lives\u2026 bringing us, if we will come\u2026 to the point of being living sacrifices.\u00a0 Again, C.S. Lewis writes:\r\n\r\n<em>\u201cMake no mistake,\u201d [God] says, \u201cif you let me, I will make you perfect.\u00a0 The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for.\u00a0Nothing less, or other, than that.\u00a0 You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away.\u00a0 But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<blockquote>So, one of the great life lessons is, \u201cdon\u2019t fight God.\u201d\u00a0 Don\u2019t try to fight or shrink or hide from God.\u00a0 Willingly submit to the refinement process He takes us through.\u00a0 If we fight it, we will diminish our potential, reduce our joy, shrink our power, and decimate our impact.<\/blockquote>\r\nContinuing his comments on this subject, Lewis writes: \u201c<em>[God] claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There\u2019s no bargaining with Him.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\n<strong>Conclusion<\/strong>\r\n\r\nSo, again, this is not hard to understand\u2026 just hard to do.\u00a0 We have to keep reminding ourselves of this fundamental principle.\u00a0 And when we \u201cget it\u201d on one level, God keeps driving to help us get it on an even deeper level.\r\n\r\nIt helps me to remind myself of this final C. S. Lewis quote:\r\n\r\n<em>\"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you know that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of--throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace!\"<\/em>\r\n\r\nSo, let\u2019s ask the Lord to give us grace to believe\u2026 and believing, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/how-to-rest-in-gods-love\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">obey and rest<\/a> in all He wants to do in our lives.\u00a0 Because He loves us, He does not want us to settle for less.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s risk being a living sacrifice that we might enjoy the promised reward of a transformed life.\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\nHelp spread the message, \u201cLike\u201d my Facebook page at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/clicks.aweber.com\/y\/ct\/?l=EbnNe&amp;m=3jHYguUa2Y30Y_c&amp;b=JAi24CteGv_JF9kxW4rM6g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/maxanders.author<\/a>\u00a0and invite your friends to do the same. If you know someone you think may find this blog\u00a0valuable, please forward it to them.\u00a0I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:max@maxanders.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">max@maxanders.com<\/a>. I try to answer all emails, but, if not, I may address in future blogs the questions\/issues you raise.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod will often deliver us in a manner which seems, initially, to destroy us.\u201d \u2013 Daniel Defoe This is one of the most helpful and instructive quotes I have ever heard. It is the essence of an eternal perspective, which is essential if we are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[345,346,126,344,92],"class_list":["post-6817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-living-sacrifice","tag-renewed-mind","tag-reward","tag-risk","tag-transformed"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/8.-Risk-Reward-Principle.001.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6842,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817\/revisions\/6842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maxanders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}