Lower Still

By Heidi Baker

I have found that, just when I think I have surrendered my all to the Lord, He gently, graciously, uncovers a new layer of resistance in me that even I didn’t know was there. For a few years now, I have preached a message I call “Lower Still.” This sums up the process of Jesus tenderly shaping, patiently reshaping, and then gloriously filling our lives with Himself. Do we think we have humbled ourselves and surrendered everything to Him? We can still go lower; there is still more for us to give up.

Surrendering everything to Jesus sounds risky, as though it could be painful, difficult, demanding. Many ask, “If I completely surrender to Him, with reckless devotion, will I still be me?”

Here is what I have found to be true. Yes, it’s risky, but the reward vastly outweighs the risk. Yes, it can be painful, difficult and demanding, but the joy and all-surpassing peace that Jesus gives can hardly be compared to such fleeting inconveniences.

Most of all, Jesus doesn’t rob you of being you. You don’t somehow become less than yourself because Jesus’ presence is larger in you. It’s just the opposite; the more you surrender to Him, the more you become who Father always intended you to be.

This is all part of God’s upside economy, which defies the narrow-minded, one-dimensional, limited wisdom of human thinking. In choosing to become nothing, we become everything we were ever meant to be.

As always, Jesus is our model. He made Himself as nothing so His Father might be fully glorified through Him. In Philippians, Paul urges us to imitate Jesus’ humility:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2:1–4

As we do this, we’ll not only find our purpose in Jesus’ Kingdom; we’ll also truly find ourselves.

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Heidi Baker Heidi and Rolland Baker, founders of Iris Global, served as missionaries in Indonesia and Hong Kong before following God’s call in 1995 to Mozambique. In the face of overwhelming need, the Bakers now watch God provide miraculously for well over 10,000 children every day through their ministry, and many more through the Iris network of more than 10,000 churches, Bible schools, primary schools and remote outreach programs. They both earned Ph.D. degrees at King’s College, University of London. She and Rolland have written several books, including Reckless Devotion, Learning to Love and Always Enough. They live in Mozambique. https://twitter.com/DrHeidiBaker and www.facebook.com/DrHeidiBaker

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