Vital Signs: Sunday, January 5, 2024

My Life Words for 2025

“Intentional Surrender”

Meaning: To intentionally surrender my focus to being in the presence of God—a human being, not a human doing.

We must embrace the fact that God is much more interested in our intimacy with Him than in our desire to do for Him.

The great commandment makes it very clear that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is through our intimacy with God and our intentional surrender to Him that He dispatches us under His authority, power, and strength to love our neighbor and fulfill the great commission: "Go therefore and make disciples."

Here’s my question for us today:

Are we living our lives focused on our own agendas, wants, and desires? If so, we must recognize that when we physically die, that agenda dies with us.

Or should we consider intentional surrender to God’s will—being in His presence, making His name famous, discipling others, and raising up disciples who, in turn, raise up more disciples? This, my friend, is a God agenda that lives on long after we’re gone.

As for me, I choose the latter. It all starts with “Being”, not “Doing”.