It sobers me to realize that I can deny Jesus Christ the possession of my life, even though I have no right to refuse Him. I can, if I choose, reduce myself to the level of the Corinthians and become as fleshly and quarrelsome as they. But if I do, something will happen.My refusal to allow Him His possession makes it impossible for Him to do with me what He longs to do. He longs to give us—who have no right to it—everything!
Paul said, “All things are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:21, KJV). God has made us “joint heirs” with Christ, and He wants to dominate us in order to make that inheritance practical in our daily lives. The more I yield to Christ, the more I will be a “conqueror”; and the more I conquer, the more I will yield, until it becomes an upward spiral of continual conquest and victory. It is one of heaven’s strange laws that if I resign all rights of possession to Jesus Christ, I begin that very moment to possess all that I have surrendered.
So I must not cheat Jesus Christ—or myself. I must never bring myself down to the place where I say dismally, “He bought my heart and I didn’t love Him; He bought my body and I didn’t serve Him; He bought my mind and I didn’t think of Him; He bought my will and I didn’t yield to Him.” Oswald Chambers said, “The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” This is why Jesus died: “that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them” (2 Corinthians 5:15, NIV). The cross of Christ—and its power— is fulfilled in me the moment I say yes to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over me.
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).
Daily with the King 