Give Yourself Away

  It was a mastepiece. Or so I thought.  After much prayer and consideration,  I put the finishing touches on my article and clicked “ send” on my computer.   I was pretty happy with it. I thought it covered the topic well, was thought provoking, and as the Bible says provided the “spiritual meat”  any reader would feed on.  My mind drifted to visions of my inbox being overrun with e-mails of publishers who had seen my work and wanted  to put it into print.  Even Ralphie from A Christmas Story would be jealous.

 

And then I waited.  And waited. And waited .

 

Then,  it happened.

 

Nothing.

 No repsonse.

I asked the Lord why, if I felt like He was calling me to become a writer ,did no one respond to publishing my article.  “ Give Yourself Away” was the response.

Then I realized.

 My article lacked one thing.

 Me.

I wrote all the right things.  Everything was accurate, concise and  thorough.  But, it lacked the passion and  authenticity of my conversion exeperience that began when I was 18 and, thankfully, continues today. An experience that can be classified as rocky at best.  An experience that continued with me   being  thrown out at the age of 20 because of my faith.  Sure, God provided for me with everything  I could ever need  in the midst of family turmoil and kept my well from ever going dry. An experience that included  a calling into the ministry at the age of 22 in a small country church  2700 miles from my hometown.  An experience that includes the death of my mother at the age of 25.  An experience that includes  the planting of our current  church less than two years later. But, I hadn’t written any of that.  I hadn’t given any of myself away.  I missed the interaction with an Incarnational God.

  I had missed the point.

  So, did Peter.

 In John 21, Jesus has an exchange with Peter that some publishers have subtitled “ Jesus reinstates Peter.”   Sure, Peter was the one that got out of the boat and begins to walk towards Jesus.  He also defends Jesus when the soldiers arrest him in John  18 .

But, when push came to shove, Peter took his eyes off the prize.  He took his eyes off of Jesus and onto the temporal things of the world: what people thought of him,  the storm,   his circumstances.   Peter did all the things a disciple is supposed to do. He talked a great game.  But, those things were never a part of who he was.

Jesus refers to Himself as “ I am” because, put simply, He is.  He doesn’t have to be anything else than who He is.  That’s why Jesus asks him three separate times if Peter loves Him.  The first two times the Greek word for love is agape. In other words, if  Peter loves Him, then He will love Jesus above all else.

He didn’t.

The third time the greek word for love is phileo, or brotherly. The same reason why Philadelphia is nicknamed “ The City of Brotherly Love.”   So, if Peter really loved Jesus, he would love Jesus above all else, and love his brother as himself.

Sound familiar?

Peter showed Jesus he loved  him by doing all the right things, but it was never a part of who he was.  Peter  ignored the Greatest Commandment.

And so did I.

If I want to spiritually form others into His likeness, I need to “ give myself away” a little everyday. 

Myself.

Not my neighbor, or my husband, or my pastor.

 But me.

 Myself,  including all of my failures,  my mistakes and my flaws.  Including my misconceptions and marred perspectives and my bad theology.  Me.

I can “ be” the church a little everyday and give myself away.

Have you given yourself away today?