DEFEATED
I want to give you the sustenance to “crawl on your cross”, something you can die with! We live in a culture that has attempted to successfully homogenize God, make God relevant to us, get Him down here. Our culture is baited with religion. We add Jesus to all the other idols in our lives, keeping one foot in the world and one in Christ. So then, we nibble at that religion because we get offended at ‘the demand’ that is found in Christ. It requires another spirit to follow Christ. There is no royal blood shed for cowards. He or she that doesn’t know whom and what they are fighting for will soon be tempted to change sides. You CAN crawl on your cross.
I heard a woman sitting in her wheelchair make a statement that stuck in me. As she gave her testimony of God’s faithfulness, she said, “my cross is not this wheelchair, my cross is my attitude about this wheelchair.” I submit to you that my entire life, God has been trying to talk to me. My entire Christian experience has really hinged on a few things, of which this rings the loudest: God is after something in me! There’s something God is reaching for in me. A few months ago on February 12, 2007, I was in a hotel room in Hampton, Virginia when the Lord spoke to me saying, “You’ve got one shot.” One shot? That’s right, one shot to allow God to get the most glory He desires out of my life as I live with eternity in sight! I want to live ahead of the times, not in season or behind season, but ahead of time.
I read in the scripture, “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it will be revealed by fire: and fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” Is this an external work of his hands, maybe his assignment? It may be part of it but is not the primary work of a child of God. The child of God has a role and God has a role. You can’t change you. It’s your job to empty yourself, it’s God’s job to take it from you and fill you up. If you could eternally change you, you would have already started your own messianic savior business where you would cure people! What is every man’s work? I hear people say, “I’m called to be a worship leader”, “I’m called to be a preacher”, etc. Yes, however first and foremost, you are called to be Christlike.
May I submit to you that it’s every man’s work to become the landscape and to bear the image of the Son of God? This assignment and call ousts the mission to third world countries, curing global hunger and disease, etc. Can I tell you the biggest hill you’ll ever climb is the hill where you see the son of God ask you to get on the cross with Him and die? It will be the battle of denying yourself and being conformed. Many a soldier has went away to win a battle on foreign soil only to come home and die from his own inability to die to himself. Every man’s work is to conform to the image of Jesus Christ. You’ve got one shot, one life! Don’t blow it! Make the right choice!
Men and women get into their latter years and begin to just get to the place that God has mastered their inner man. I don’t want to wait until I’m lying on my death bed to tell the few people that mean the most just what they mean. Tell them now! If you have a vision, do it now! If you have a dream, do it now!
What many men don’t know is that God is not trying to give you a pseudo-victorious life. He’s trying to give you a defeated one! How to live defeated comes from how to be defeated. One once said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s where you lay the blame”. What happens when God is enthroned?! Your flesh will shriek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In our day of civil liberties it is very difficult for us to comprehend what it was like for people living in Bible times under the authority of a king. He was the dictator with absolute control over every person in the kingdom. The fairness of this was examined on 20/20, Dateline, or 60 Minutes. The legality of it wasn’t challenged by the ACLU. There were no protest marches outside the palace. The King’s authority was a way of life. Nobody questioned it or even though to. Occasionally one king would decide to invade the kingdom of another. If he won, everyone in the invaded kingdom would become subject to him, including the losing king.
In 1 Kings 20:1-2, the powerful king of Syria, Ben-hadad, was coming to attack the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He sent to Ahab saying, “Your silver, your gold, and the best of your wives and children ARE mine!” Ahab’s response was, “Just as you say, my lord and my king. I am yours, and all I have is yours.” Ahab understood unconditional surrender. This is what regeneration, conversion, and salvation is all about! People get saved under a false pretense now: it’s conditional. They say, “Hey God, I’m gonna get saved and here are the conditions and rules.” When they get saved in this manner most times they backslide when their list of wishes is not granted inside of their fleshly time frame.
I remember a time in my life when I bowed my knees and my life and didn’t get saved with conditions. I was defeated and my life was overthrown by a new King. There were no lists of conditions. The enormity of my sin overwhelmed me. The magnitude of my crimes against God staggered me. The reality of my unworthy condition was too great to bear. With nothing to offer, nothing I could do to save myself, I said, “God, you’ve got my undivided attention! I’m yours and all I’ve got is yours!”
People don’t come to God with a realization of their sinful condition. They are willing to change their lives to a reasonable extent if it means getting out of hell. They simply switch sides and line up with what’s called mainstream Christianity. They learn all the popular personalities, they read what books are considered “must read”, and find an upscale church to attend. They adeptly adapt! They even learn hoe to mimic those around them with the right lingo!
Now, I love to be free but at times we are way too free to be captive the Holy Ghost. If I am crazy, then why did Jesus say over and over, “If any man comes after me, he must take up his cross and follow me”? What does crucified mean to you? There is a demand put on the child of God. You are not better than a sinner, but you are different. It is not about who you are but whose you are! I’m crucified, I have no opinion. My opinion is whatever God wants. Think about this if you will. Jesus Christ died doing the will of God! I’m learning how to be defeated. It is my defeat that is the seed to a harvest of victory in my life. Not so I can be doubly anointed but so I can say I didn’t grimace at the will of God. I bow to your plan and welcome your process Lord!
So Eric, what does all this mean? See, if you were a child you wouldn’t relate who you are to what you did for a living. You wouldn’t be occupationally minded. But as an adult you become purpose minded and occupationally minded, correlating your identity (who you are) with what you do. God is after who you are, not what you do. God is after our works, our faith, our obedience, our family, our money, our ministry, etc. But Most of all He’s after you! You are the project. You, yourself are the work. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul says, “When I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” This word “demonstration” means a display or visual aid. Paul is saying here that his life and ministry is literal “proof”. He is saying that he is “living proof” of God’s power and work in one’s life. Have you ever heard of someone who got saved by looking at the beauty of the sky, the stars, or all of Gods creation? No. It’s you and it’s me that are God’s canvas and landscape. I’m the work, project, and assignment. You are you first mission field.
Paul said he was a spectacle or theatre. Please understand that it won’t be what we say that will change anyone, it will be what they see in our life. They are watching! My life is an open-air theatre. At first this sounds exciting, doesn’t it? And then life comes and with it, more life. Paul said that it seemed to him that God has put us who bear His name on a stage in a theatre which no one wants to buy a ticket at. We’re something that everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. Then, you are thrust into an arena that seems anything but the will of God. It hits you…..YOU ARE THE WORK! It’s God trying to see His son in you. Many trials are only a result of failure to let the image develop. Like photograph negatives. Why? Because a roaring devil would love for you and I to roar and shout the name of Jesus all through the streets that he walks about as long as we don’t look like Jesus! He doesn’t care if you walk like Him or talk like Him, as long as you don’t look like Him.
How about the prayer to be more like Jesus? “I want your will Lord!” What’s more dangerous than praying, “Lord, I just want people to see Jesus in me. When you are on stage, it will seem that everything and everyone around you are prospering. You’re enemy, “You must not be spiritual”. I wonder if heaven will be a beautiful place with four long lines to receive your specific crown. Paul talked about an incorruptible crown and crown of righteousness, James taught about the crown of life, and Peter said there is a crown that fadeth not away. However, may I submit to you that I don’t think heaven is going to be a crown affair. When you get to heaven you are going to realize what Paul did in Philipians that “he counted all things loss that he may win CHRIST!” It is a person Paul’s after, the very Son of God and it works both ways. God doesn’t want my crown or crowns, he wants me. I am the work. Oh that Christ could say that I may win YOU!!
