“Why is it that some people can know Jesus for forty years and be stingy and untransformed? Why is it that others can exude Jesus four months after shaking hands with Him? The answer? It has to do with what those people do with everything. They either hoard their “everything” as a means to coddle and control their lives, or they joyfully relinquish everything to Jesus.” —Mary DeMuth, Everything
The words in this book, written by a “fellow struggler” have been words in due season.
One particular chapter I read while I was riding in the passenger seat of my car, with my husband the driver. He looked over to me and said, “You know, you could just print the pages out in yellow ink.” Looking back over the yellow streaked, highlighted pages — I am reminded.
“To lose my life for His sake, so I will save it.” (Luke 9:24)
To live a life of surrender.
To live a life that is not my own, but Christ’s.
To count all loss as rubbish for the sake of knowing Him.
To know Him is to know His love for us, and for them.
To know His love for the lost world
dying without salvation.
To say, “I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I who live,
but Christ lives in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God…”
(Galatians 2:20)
is not “painless Christianity.”
And in the book, I read this line,
“To spend myself.” p. 163
And it stops me in my tracks.
How will I spend myself? And on the page, next to that line, “To spend myself,” scratched out by my own hand in almost illegible ink, yet clearly legible in the writing on my heart by the very hand of God, the answer . Yes, I am a wife and mama first, but then…
“On behalf of the poor.” (Isaiah 58)
“I need to know God’s enormity as He stoops to meet my inability. In my frailty, I am strong. In my small willingness to walk the paths He has for me, He meets me…I’m not saying we can’t live blessed lives if we follow Jesus. But we often neglect the hard places of obedience, in favor of the blessings only…To follow Jesus means to do what He asks of us, and sometimes He asks us to let go of fame, give away our things and choose discomfort. The growth experience when we do that is the blessing.” —Mary DeMuth, Everything p. 161
Joining in community with Denise in Bloom.
I received a complimentary copy of Everything, for my honest review.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure here.