GIVING UP CONTROL TO FOLLOW JESUS

By Kyle Idleman

Are you suffering? Maybe your heart has been broken. Your bank account emptied. Your future made uncertain. Or your dreams cut short. When you find yourself in that dark place where nothing is sure and you fear all may be lost, is your first reaction to delight in the love of God?

When we lose those things that we’ve been holding onto for significance, we often find that God’s love is all we really have and need in this life.

Have you ever lost control of something that was important to you?

I’ve found that most people are all for Jesus as long as following him doesn’t require a change in their lifestyle. The people loved Jesus as long as he was making the lame to walk and the blind to see. But the crowds had a way of thinning out when Jesus would say things like, “If anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me.” 

It’s a great paradox that in losing something you will actually find what you’ve wanted all along. But this is God’s great promise to us: if we want to follow Him, we must give up control.

When we lose life as we know it here in the shadows of holiness, we will find greater and more abundant life than we could ever have imagined. There is a great freedom in relinquishing the tight grasp you have on yourself.

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.  (Matthew 16: 24-25)

“Giving Up Control To Follow Jesus” is from excerpts from The Easter Experience.