Doomsday

This week was the uh oh topic: Lordship. The scariest week of DTS, where we look at the absolute worthiness of God to be Lord of our whole lives; for us to live lives of 100% surrender. This is the week where all the fears come to the surface, and all the things we hold behind our backs, "out of God's view", get exposed. The classic hangups arise: "But if I surrender everything to God.... He will send me to go live in a mud hut in Africa... I'll never get married.... I'll be sick and miserable the rest of my life." If we're honest with ourselves we maintain tight control of our lives because we are afraid of what He will do if we let go. We then often wonder why are lives are a bit dull and our relationship with God is a bit trite.

"The problem isn't that we're lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives. Jesus came humbly as a servant, but He never begs us to give Him some small part of ourselves. He commands everything from His followers."
- Francis Chan, Crazy Love

The truth is He does demand everything. Just read the things Jesus said to the people who wanted to follow him but weren't prepared to do it wholeheartedly. Lordship week on DTS is taking a look at what things would hold us back from following Jesus completely, and then removing them.

So on Friday, ("application day") the students made a choice. They made the choice to never have a choice again; to let God be Lord of not parts of their lives, not some of their decisions, not one day of their week, but of ALL. You would expect this to be a very serious and somber occasion. Painful tears of fearful surrender.

But instead there were mostly tears of joy, sighs of relief, deep freedom, and a lifting of heavy burdens. Because yes God demands everything. He is very clear about that. But this same God who demands everything is the covenant keeping God, who in His own words promised His people: "I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and... in faithfulness."

We must surrender to Him because He is worthy. But we also get to surrender to Him because He's sooooooo good. If we lose our lives we will gain it. The students caught a glimpse of that ironic promise on Friday and I believe they are prepared to live it out.