Congrats! You’ve made it through Week One! You’re doing great friend! Three more weeks to go and a lifetime of honoring His Presence, to look forward to! 🙂 Today we’re diving in deeper on what it looks like to live in submission to the Presence of Jesus and lean into His Voice.
The Presence of God is our life source. He is in constant pursuit of us, in the struggles, hurdles and the process it takes to live a surrendered life. He is not afraid of our weaknesses nor does He look away in disappointment, when we stumble and miss the way.
He’s always there with outstretched arms waiting to pick us up and even sits with us in the ruins. He waits and is not in a hurry. He takes His time in forming us to look like His beautiful and perfect Son Jesus. We can be so real, raw and honest with Him – there’s such a deep sense of security and rest in living the surrendered life and in being aware of His voice leading us step by step. I encourage you to place your hand over your heart and ask Holy Spirit for His truth as you read and receive today’s lesson.
We’re in this together…let’s dive right in!
John 1:3 says, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
What a significant scripture. Every thing we see around us, comes through the Person and Presence of Jesus. Likewise, whatever does not come from His Presence, will not have life on it.
There have been times when I’ve struggled to maintain a relationship or complete a project in my own strength. When I traced back to why I said what I said or did what I did, it became clear to me that I attempted to make a decision apart from His voice and relied on my own understanding, instead of waiting in His Presence, asking for His instruction and overflowing in His peace and wisdom. Instead I took it upon myself to “fix the issue” or “take control” and moved in haste.
Can you relate at all? 🙂
Back in 2006 after years of repeated inner battles I hit a wall and came to the end of myself. I kept wondering why I wasn’t experiencing the ‘abundant life’ Jesus died for me (and you) to thrive in, in all of its fullness. I felt that if I didn’t experience His wholeness and freedom, there just was no purpose in living and there most certainly wasn’t any purpose in me representing Him doing “ministry”. I wanted to live for Him from a genuine place of relationship and connection not from a place of familiarity and performance.
After several years of living in cycles of loss, defeat and depression that made me so weary, I turned to Jesus in utter desperation as I felt trapped under the heavy weight of shame and regret in my ‘dark night of the soul.’
In that place of brokenness, He began to reveal deeper measures of His goodness and His kindness that truly led me to repentance. (Romans 2: 4 “…Don’t you realize that God’s kindness is meant to turn you away from your sins?”)
As I confessed and repented of specific times I ran ahead of Him which resulted in confusion, heartache and failures in my life, His voice of love pierced straight through all of the surface explanations and blame-shifting I had shielded myself with, and He revealed, “My Beloved Jo, that’s not called ‘running ahead’ that’s called ‘rebellion.’ Whoaaa!!
When Jesus reveals His truth to our hearts, it sometimes can be offensive to our minds but there’s a peace that accompanies His convicting words. Now I just want to say this here: Jesus is THE kindest Person on the planet and gently loves the contrite, broken heart and at the same time He desires His piercing, revealing Truth to bring freedom from every deception and lie we may be
trapped in. When His truth is received, there’s lasting fruit and the cycles of bondage are broken! On that day when His light exposed the darkness, the sin no longer had power over my soul. My heart was laid bare and nothing, nothing was hidden.
That is the best and most secure place to be – fully and completely surrendered in the loving hands of Jesus as He prunes, cleanses, heals and restores our hearts.
This extremely loving and powerful Jesus called me out and cut to the chase. He is the ultimate Truth teller! What’s so amazing is that in that moment of truth, I never felt condemned by Him or without hope. His conviction was beautiful and I embraced it. There was no other option but to embrace His love. As He spoke those words of truth that pierced my heart, I saw that the current state of depression, suicidal thoughts and negativity in my life, were actually the fruit of the sin of unbelief. When He’s not supreme in our lives, then self is the focus. We can strive with our might and power to live without shame and brokenness and may cloak it with religion, addictions, social media likes, food or some other temporary fix. But until we come to that place of complete abandonment to His heart, we won’t experience the abundance of His divinely energized LIFE!
When Jesus is the focus, we manifest HIS abundant life of joy, peace and wholeness. Even now, I can still remember how I fell into His loving arms and for weeks and weeks, I – His beloved – felt tucked away in His heart as He cleansed the wounds, healed me, breathed into me, sang over me, (a few times He even woke me up in the middle of the night, just to be with me…ahhhh the sweet and rich Presence of Jesus) and strengthened my inner man with His power! I felt such a heart warming sense of hope, light and strength come in me.
In the light of His goodness, the darkness was exposed and destroyed. As I came to see His Truth, I could now be truly healed to the deepest core of my heart and wholeheartedly live the abundant life He died for me to experience and enjoy.
What does all that have to do with supremacy of Christ? Trusting in Jesus, allowing Him to be in control and reign supreme over our lives results in fruit and favor on our life. That’s not to say everything will be perfect and trial-free, but even in the midst of the circumstances we can be confident that God is walking with us and in us. His supernatural life of peace, wisdom, joy and power that is over every form darkness – resides in us. We can be confident of God’s ability to sustain us and that His goodness will manifest in our lives, far more than we could ever manipulate or strive for in our own strength and ingenuity.
John 5:19 “Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
If Jesus did nothing of Himself, then certainly we cannot either. The Apostle Paul even said, “put no confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:3)
That powerful encounter with the Lord in 2006 has always stayed with me as a reminder of how necessary it is, to do nothing apart from His Presence. It sounds extreme. But Jesus our model, lived in constant devotion to the Father and only did that which pleased Him. This high standard of devotion is impossible for us to achieve in our own strength and sheer willpower, which is all the more reason to lean on and ask our Helper, Holy Spirit to empower the life of Jesus to reign supreme in our hearts. It’s the highest form of living. Submission to His Presence isn’t restricting, it’s actually liberating. A whole new, free and spacious way of walking in the Spirit becomes opened up to us when we are in this beautiful posture of humility, simplicity and devotion to His way.
The supremacy of Christ in our lives, is the desire to simply trust Him in everything and do nothing apart from His voice and His Presence, all because He loved us first and we choose to love Him more than life itself.
Philippians 3: 12-16 12It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ [Jesus]. 13 Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.15 Let us, then, who are “perfectly mature” adopt this attitude. And if you have a different attitude, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only, with regard to what we have attained, continue on the same course.
Psalm 71: 15-19 15I will tell of Your goodness; all day long I will speak of Your salvation, though it is more than I can understand. 16I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will proclaim Your goodness, Yours alone. 17You have taught me ever since I was young, and I still tell of Your wonderful acts.
18Now that I am old and my hair is gray, do not abandon me, O God! Be with me while I proclaim Your power and might to all generations to come. 19Your righteousness, God, reaches the skies. You have done great things; there is no one like You.
Isaiah 55:8-9 8“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.
