Resurrection Power (2)

Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to the Lord Leviticus 27:28

Destruction – When we realize that submission to God means death before life, it suddenly dawns on us that this is the only way God would have done it. God does not take what I do best and put it to His use. God takes what I cannot do without Him and uses me to bring it to be. Any thought that I am somehow contributing to the results that God accomplishes through me is completely counter to the Biblical view. God does through me what I am utterly incapable of doing. That is resurrection power, bringing life out of what is dead. That is why anything devoted to the Lord is devoted to destruction. God does not recharge my innate potential. He resurrects what is dead in me.

Consider the plain statements of Jesus. Over and over He tells us that He does nothing on His own. He does only what the Father shows Him. He says only what the Father tells him. Jesus has no personal agenda, no inherent power, no self-motivation. Jesus is God’s servant in every respect. He lives the resurrected life, a life that depends entirely on God’s animating energy.

So it is to be with you and me. God does not want what you are able to do. He wants you to give up living your own agenda and place yourself on the altar. God wants you to volunteer to die, just as Isaac did, because God knows that He cannot do anything with men or women who think they have something valuable to offer in service to the All Mighty. God is waiting for that man or woman who comes broken, empty, destroyed; who knows what it means to be utterly unable. That is the person God can thoroughly use because that is the person who will open the floodgates to be God’s pipeline. Nothing of self can be used in holy service to God. It must die and be resurrected. That is something no man can do. Life from death is God’s domain.

Paul proclaimed that he wanted only to know Jesus, his resurrection power and the fellowship of his suffering. I wonder if we can really know the Lord without resurrection in our own lives. I wonder if we have any idea who Jesus is until we too have died and been raised to life. Until you have attended your own burial, God cannot put you into His service. The gospel is good news only to those who are dead.