Hi, this is Joni Eareckson Tada, and here’s a hymn I bet you know…so sing along with me.
(Joni sings:)
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust him,
In his presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all.
All to thee my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
Well, hi, I am Joni Eareckson Tada, the lady who loves to sing in the wheelchair, and very often, you know what, I sing this hymn as a prayer, I do. And I need to! It seems the Holy Spirit is constantly pinpointing things in my life: things I need to confess, give up, give over; things I need to surrender to him. In fact, last night, right before prayer time, I was struggling to push out of my heart one of those stupid daydreams. My thinking was, I don’t want to approach God like this, really I don’t. And then I remembered Ephesians 3:17 where it says that Christ dwells in our hearts. Wow! Right then it occurred to me afresh how close God was – smack in the middle of that daydream because the Spirit of the Lord dwells in my heart. My goodness, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and he resides inside me – inside the same heart that wrestles with sin. And so my next thought was to groan out loud: “O Lord, O Jesus, I don’t know how you can stand to live inside me right next to all these stupid daydreams!”
It is God who carries the weight of my campaign against sin, but I rarely think of him as living that up-close-and-personal when I’m struggling against temptation or dumb daydreams. Because he lives inside me, he literally is in the thick of the battle – right there in the middle. Yet he’s the one who has to put up with my failures, my often yielding to stupid thoughts or taking worldly advice or caving in to sin or ignoring his warnings. He’s the one who has to put up with me forgetting my calling as a servant and walking more than occasionally in the flesh. How does the spirit of Jesus inside me put up with all that? Whoa!
But Scripture tells me, “The battle belongs to the Lord.” And I am amazed that the Spirit I grieve when I sin turns right around, whenever he hears me repent, and he empowers me to conquer that sin – alright! I’m glad God does not hold a grudge. And I’m so thankful he does not keep a record of my wrongs or get tired of coming to my aid. I am relieved he does not say “I told you so!” And I’m so grateful that even when I quench his fire in my heart, he can always be stirred to action by the match ignited when I confess. Come to think of it, I am very glad the Lord resides inside me, because the closer he is to the battle – right there in my heart – the closer his love is to me.
So what battles rage in your heart today? What temptations taunt you? Remember that although the Father loves you, and Jesus Christ intercedes and prays for you, it’s the Spirit who has to live with you. So picture that today. Imagine him residing inside you. Today he’s urging you to surrender all – because the power he offers is as close as the temple in which he dwells – right there in your heart.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends