Over the last couple of days, I see and hear much directed towards taking and declaring our freedom that we have the opportunity to take hold of as well as the struggle of why it seems so hard to take hold of. A friend of mine used the term bondage. Have you ever thought of our lives in what we consider a free country to be not actually free? How naïve we would be if we were deceived into thinking that we are when we are not as “Americans”. I think most of us agree we all serve something. We will pour energy and time into something. This concept of totally freedom as it is related to surrender. Read and mediate on the following excerpts over the next few days and decide for yourself. I was reading to my parents something from the book on surrender about freedom I will share shortly about slavery and they seemed as though they couldn’t relate. I thought about how many times I looked at my childhood as the reason why I am so selfish; however it dawned on me yesterday I was born selfish. Only by God can I not be. No amount of my effort can accomplish unselfishness. I cannot deliver myself from that. The following I hope to share over the next several days has been profound to me in helping me begin to understand. I hope and pray what is shared here helps you in some way and let it be used to help others as well. Feel free to input. It takes all perspectives to see the entire picture. Iron sharpens Iron. May God be with us all in continual growth and understanding of His plan and His word.
Quotes are from several sources that may unfold this more or at least begin to take us down the road in maybe seeing a little clearer what so many of us are fighting with right now based on some comments I’ve noticed and especially my own feeling.
The following are three different passages taken from the book absolute surrender. FACT: If I am not surrendered then I am a slave to something.
From the book "Absolute Surrender" and the chapter “We are the branches”
"A branch is absolutely dependent upon the vine if it will bear fruit. It is required to do no work. Only bear fruit.
There is a vine in Hampton Court London which sometimes bore a couple of thousand bunches of grapes. It was discovered not so very far away runs the River Thames and the vine had stretched its roots hundreds of yards under the ground until it came to the riverside, and there in the rich slime of the riverbed it had found rich nourishment and obtained moisture and the roots had drown the sap all that distance up and up into the vine and as a result there was a rich and abundant harvest. The vine labored and all the branch had to do was depend upon the vine and receive what it gave.
What did the branch have to do? Nothing! Oh do you know the blessedness in the word nothing? Whenever I am something then God is not everything. If I become nothing then God can become all. Let us again ask the question: What has the branch to do? You know that precious, inexhaustible word that Christ used: ABIDE.
The branch abides in the vine. The life of the branch is total and absolute surrender. “Have you anything to do, little branch, besides bearing grapes?” “No nothing.” “Are you fit for nothing?” Fit for nothing! The bible says that a bit of vine cannot even be used as a pen; it is fit for nothing to be burned. “And now what do you understand little branch, about your relationship to the vine?” “My relationship to the vine is just this: I am utterly given up to the vine, and the vine can give me as much or as little sap as it chooses. Here I am at its disposal and the vine can do with me what it likes.”"
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