This morning I was awakened with three words rolling around in my mind. So, I have been working through some ideas about their relationship.

Ego – Position – Value

So often our ego needs and clamors for a position. W then judge our value based on that position which naturally leads us to a greater void in the ego (because it can never be satisfied) thereby perpetuating the cycle. Our joy and feelings are then in a constant state of going up or down depending on those external issues.

But, God desires to set us free from this threefold tyranny!

Because in His reality of life our value is set already. It is set not by any inherent activity of our own or from the external trappings from others. Our value is set by God as our Maker and the One who pursued us to buy us back when He gave that clothing of righteousness (taqwa) to our first parents a long, long time ago and again through the submission of the Messiah for all humanity (made like Adam again).

Therefore in God’s view (the only real one anyway), we are valuable with an infinite value because of Him and who He is! That value is unchanging and timeless. It cannot be diminished by anything earthy – nothing can separate us from His love because it is in Him.*

So, if our value is set and we are rested in that truth then the cycle breaks! Our position is irrelevant and our ego is subsumed in worship to such an amazing love and to the God of that love.

No more schizophrenic drives, no more irrational fear of worthlessness.

Life becomes whole, free, and purposeful.

Free to serve, free to receive love, free to give love, free to “be” instead of merely “do”.

What a priceless freedom. Only that reality can break this self-cycle of tyrrany.

True freedom from tyrrany!

——

*Of course not all will respond to that love and they will persist in rebellion. But even when judgment comes for them it will not be outside of this infinite love. Infinite love will be still be breaking for them as Love honors their choice of separation from Him.

I was just taking a moment to go through my journal after a very powerful conversation with a friend. My eyes fell on the entry just a few days after our being laid off last year.

Here are seven things that we reminded ourselves of and then chose to remember and live by. I hope they are a blessing to you. He has proven Himself again to us through it all.

1. God is passionately loving and loves us. If God is for us – who can be against us (God cannot lie).

2. God has a good plan. If I submit to His leadership, He is able to bring that to fruition faster.

3. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Implication: if someone leaves, it is us. So, if we constantly choose to be His, we will NEVER be alone and outside of His care.

4. We are His responsibility. He is our Father, protector, provider, and keeper. We trust Him – He cares for us.

5. All things that impact our life come from Him. The faster we realize that, the faster we resubmit our lives fully to Him and can watch Him orchestrate our lives for His glory.

6. Our choice is to submit constantly to Him because He is all we truly desire.

7. I don’t have to understand how God is leading. He is in control, not me. My “leadership” in my family or team is not in knowing what is ahead but in remaining fully connected to God and following Him wherever and however He leads. So, in leading, I am actually following!

What is your list of indisputables like?

Submission; surrender; death to self; all of these words seem to denote a very powerful experience. Whether it is from the Islamic tradition or the Christian, the thought is the same: God is god, we are not; and this is the process of realizing it!

We acknowledge His supremacy in both our lives and the world. He reigns supreme. He is worthy of all our praise and service. He is love and we trust Him.

I have been blessed this morning with some powerful words from Richard Foster about this very thing. In speaking of the prayer of Relinquishment, he says that it “is a bona fide letting go, but it is a release with hope. We have no fatalist resignation. We are buoyed up by a confident trust in the character of God. Even when all we see are the tangled threads on the backside of life’s tapestry we know that God is good and is out to do us good always. That gives us hope to believe that we are the winners, regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish. God is inviting us deeper in and higher up. There is training in righteousness, transforming power, new joys, deeper intimacy.” [Prayer Treasury, by Richard Foster, page 52]

Further on in the process of relinquishing or submitting we realize over and over again that we have some challenging issues, however, in making that a reality. Actually, we can’t make it a reality. We can choose, but only He can make it work. So, what do we choose? To die to self, to surrender, to “islam” (the word in Arabic literally means to submit or surrender); whichever version you prefer, the process will be similar. And, it will hurt. Soren Kierkegaard says, “God creates everything out of nothing — and everything which he is to use he first reduces to nothing.” Ouch!

It will be the death of self and all its “hyphenated sins.” Or, again, as Foster relates, “It means freedom from what A.W. Tozer called ‘the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit.’ It means freedom from the self-sins: self-sufficiency, self-pity, self-absorption, self-abuse, self-aggrandizement, self-castigation, self-deception, self-exaltation, self-depreciation, self-indulgence, self-hatred, and a host of others just like them. It means freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get our own way. It means freedom to care for others, to genuinely put their needs first, to give joyfully and freely.” [ibid. page 54]

Read those again. Freedom from SELF:
SELF. . .sufficiency,
SELF. . .pity,
SELF. . .absorption,
SELF. . .abuse,
SELF. . .aggrandizement,
SELF. . .castigation,
SELF. . .deception,
SELF. . .exaltation,
SELF. . .depreciation,
SELF. . .indulgence,
SELF. . .hatred.

WOW! Have you experienced any of those? Of course we have. Want to be free from all of them?

Wouldn’t life be powerful without needing to worry about them because they are dead and we are alive to a new life of power, passion, peace, purpose, and praise! I long to remain in that second list.

POWER, PASSION, PEACE, PURPOSE, and PRAISE!

Oh God, thank you for setting us free from those hyphenated sins and giving us new life and purpose in You!

I had mentioned how I would be moderating a neat event in January. Well, now you can read more about it here and even listen to the audio of the speakers. It was a great afternoon with 6 different Muslim speakers sharing their views of Islam in America.

Let me know what you think of it and I hope it will be a blessing to you!

AIF Description of the Event

Enjoy the audio of the event.

Here is a recording of a sermon that I did a few years ago that highlights the Biblical connections of the children of the East or the line of Ishmael.

If this excites you, let me know, there are more connections and possibilities for people of faith to stand together.

God’s name will be praised and His temple will be made glorious by submitted, praying, obedient people!