Patrick O'Connell

Wholly Surrendered Today

I ask the same question everyday. "Am I going to live a wholly surrendered life today?" Yep--same question everyday.

As I see it, I have choices to make everyday about how I will live my life.

• Will I holdback parts of my life from God this day?
• Am I willing to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit? 
• Am I willing to place myself in a posture of dependency on the Spirit.

Jesus lived his life dependent on the Holy Spirit. This inspires me. One time he told his disciples:

He (the Holy Spirit) will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:14).

Saying yes to surrendering my life to the Holy Spirit is to say yes to His power and presence in my life. It means I am saying yes to glorifying God in the person of Jesus. I want these things.

But some days I don't want to surrender to the Holy Spirit. Some days I want to hold on to all of the little bits of my life. Maybe I am selfish or afraid or both.

I know that whatever I don't surrender will become a burden to me. It will take my focus. It might even become a barrier between me and God. But some days it's just hard.

So tomorrow I will have the choice to make all over again. I am planning on saying yes once again to those questions, yes once again the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

2 Corinthians 5:15

Tim Sutherland, Teaching Pastor at CCC, mentioned this verse several times during his message this weekend.

Tim spoke of Paul's words in the context of a larger series called Hero. Anyway, his point was simple: Either we can spend our lives living for ourselves or we can live it for Christ. Each of us must decide. 

I've been thinking about this verse and what it means for me and my life.

2 Corinthians 5:15

And he died for for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

Daily Prayers by the Irish Jesuits

I've been spending more and more time on the website Sacred Space. Check it out for yourself.

The Change Inside Me

I've been thinking about how much I've changed in the last two years. It's been a dramatic shift from a life centered on self and all of the problems that go with this sort of focus to a life lived for a larger, more noble purpose--Christ. This change has been remarkable and it's something I plan on investigating in future posts. When I look back, I see evidence of God working in my life: It's this evidence that I wish to start examining.

What are you waiting for--JUMP!

Philip Long at theooze.com has written an article, So Jump, about why Christians ought to be more willing to leap with their faith into the waiting arms of God. Long admonishes Christians to abandon everything for the promise of God's love. Check it out.

John Fischer on why we are too literal and too late

Check out the article Too Literal, Too Limited by John Fischer in the July/August 2006 issue of Relevant Magazine. I don’t believe the article is posted online although you can click here for details about the print version.

Fischer, who also writes a daily devotional for the PurposeDrivenLife.com, asks Christ followers to consider their often too literal and too limited versions of things.

According to Fischer, we Christians have lost our ability to think for ourselves. He questions whether we are really reading the stories of Jesus or do we really on others to read them and tell us what they say.

Fischer wonders why Christians can no longer discern irony, hyperbole, and innuendo when they encounter it. We take everything so very literally that we often blind ourselves to the truth. He reminds us that this was not what Jesus did. Jesus was a master of these techniques and used them to communicate.

Fischer writes:

Jesus did this to show us that truth cannot always be nailed down into principles and propositional statements. It can't be put into four laws, 10 steps or a notebook of basi,c conflict situations with a biblical answer for each one. God, truth and people are far too complex for that.

Fischer exhorts us to read the Bible less literally and instead search for its subtleties.

The Bible was not written as a textbook to explain the world, but as a collection of narrative inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak to our souls and lead us back to God.

Fischer goes on to lament the fact that we compartmentalize our lives and thereby needlessly complicate them. We now depend on things being labeled 'Christian'  and rely on these signals to know when it's OK to worship. This blinds us to potential opportunities glorify God. Fischer reminds us that there is no exclusivity when it comes to worshipping God. Worship never needs to be announced or planned or signaled: it can occur at any time.