Surrender To Love

I Don’t Want To Be A Sinner Lord Christ, I wish I could offer you a reasonably clean and swept house to dwell in, but I can’t. I can say – and I know the meaning of – “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…” But you are already there! Living among the once-flourishing idols. The floor is dirty and at times the room is airless – even for me! I am ashamed of your presence there, yet you slept in a cave and on a donkey’s back at night under the desert stars.

So, if I can’t change your accommodations, let me rejoice all the same that you are present. I must believe strongly, Lord, that I can’t question this: you are at home with sinners – and my greatest sin is that I don’t want to be a sinner! Nor do I easily accept it – still, the evidence is overwhelming. William Breault, SJ

Surrender To Love by David Benner “Take a moment and try a simple exercise. The results will tell you a great deal about your spiritual journey. Imagine God thinking about you.... What do you assume God feels when you come to mind?

“When I ask people to do this, a surprising number of people say that the first thing they assume God feels is disappointment. Others assume that God feels anger. In both cases, these people are convinced that it is their sin that first catches God’s attention.”

“I think they are wrong – and I think the consequences of such a view of God are enormous.

“God is love.” I John 4:16

“God is love.” Question: Am I willing to surrender to love?

How do I surrender to love…? Stand in your brokenness and let God love you.

God is love… At the center of the universe is a relationship. This is the most fundamental truth I know. Experiencing the Trinity Darrell W. Johnson

Three implications we must process… Grasp the loving nature of the Trinitarian relationship Consider that we have been invited into this friendship Address any barriers causing us to resist this friendship

Three truths we must wrestle with… Grasp the loving nature of the Trinitarian relationship

Three truths we must wrestle with… Consider that we have been invited into this friendship

“My prayer is not for them alone “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:20-23

may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. Just as you are in my and I am in you… may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. John 17:21

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. I John 4:15-16

Three truths we must wrestle with… Process the barrier causing us to resist this friendship

Three truths we must wrestle with… Process the barrier causing us to resist this friendship The most difficult thing in believing is to accept that I am an object of God’s delight. Allan Jones

Three truths we must wrestle with… Process the barrier causing us to resist this friendship There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. I John 4:18

To believe, and consent to be loved while unworthy, is the greatest secret. W. R. Newell

There is tremendous relief in knowing that God’s love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. J. I. Packer

I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love may have the power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19