NOTHING LEFT BEHIND

A servant's wholeheartedness in the obedience to his Lord is a pivotal part of his relationship to his master. Before the climax of this famous gospel story, this revolutionary gospel story, the Holy Spirit was not sent down to guide us toward holiness. There was an emptiness. And for all who has not yet still received the Holy Spirit, there will forever be a hole until they soften up, open up, and become vulnerable towards the very satisfying gift of Jesus Christ. The Spirit guides us into the holy life that God intended for us when he made men in his image. While still being in the flesh and still having been a fallen race, we will always desire selfishly and never cease to lean towards worldliness until we finally have been sanctified. The Holy Spirit transforms us through the very parts of the human flesh that are deciding factors in all areas of our self-controlled lives.

" And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30 ESV

Our heart, our very emotional center, our mind, our very mental center, our soul, our very spiritual center, and our strength that comes from our body, our very physical center. The Holy Spirit fills every part of it while God waits for us to accept his will in our lives as we are transformed in every way. This transformation as we can see is a mutual relationship between the rebellious creation in response to the glorious and all-loving creator. Or at least, it has to be mutual for any sort of fruit to be reflected in life on earth. God does his part, while we accept his sovereign shaping and molding. Because of God's merciful sparing and gracious giving, any part of mutuality on our part is shown through our surrender of humane will to his supernatural, perfect will in order to follow his call. When we finally recognize that we need to surrender to his will with our lives as a living sacrifice to him holy and pleasing(Romans 12:1), the usual process that would happen in is first in speech. For it to be fully shown in any individual's life takes a lifetime of pursuit. As God speaks from his word - and in full and total truth, is speaking with is word as I am typing this very word - we begin to consciously begin to surrender to God's will through almost all of our actions aiming to build our brothers and sisters up. In every part of our lives, every part of our day, we begin to see the glorious riches of God freely as the Spirit begins to overwhelm us. Our only purpose on life now slowly begins to be living for the name of Jesus Christ and for the sake of the gospel. Does our life look like this? That in all things, we see God and his glory, that in everything, we seek to praise God, and lift up all worth he deserves? What are we leaving for ourselves that belongs to God?

Now comes the third and final part of our earthly process and progression, that is if we build our house upon a solid foundation and are always on careful watch, we will begin to unconsciously surrender ourselves to God and every slip of word that we say. In fact, we will not slip out any filthy, disgracing word when this part of our mental center becomes surrendered up to God fully because we will begin to understand and discipline ourselves to let God tame the beast. Do we always mean the prayers that we speak, or do we daydream about the amazing steak dinners or the restful sleep that we are about to have? Full surrender will not cut God short of what we can offer. Just as our physical motions reflect our mental interpretation of our heart according to our selfishness or spiritual devotion of our soul, our actions our ultimately stemmed off of our feelings that comes from our purpose and desire of our hungry souls. Full surrender is the reflection of the whole heart.

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul?"
Matthew 16:24-26a

And we can only imagine what it would profit a man to gain his soul and forfeit the whole world. Live as to leave nothing behind and cutting nothing short of the fraction we can offer to God with everything we've got. Every motion, every word, every song, every prayer, every life, every second.