Marked

Just do it. Go ahead and do it, God. Do what you have to do to me and in me that I would be more like you. It's a daily dying. It's a momentary killing off of my fleshy desires, my impure motives and all the junk that makes us do what we do. It's a surrender to your way which is high above my way. It's the pushing through into the next level when all you want to do is shrink back and argue with God about how He's called the wrong person to do the very thing you're wrestling with. (I so feel ya, Moses.) It's the releasing of fears as you hang suspended over them all with God's vantage point. It's the perfecting of love through deep revelation that will impart great courage while driving out the shadows that plague and torment. It's the free-falling of grace that takes your breath away all while you brace yourself for a hard landing. It's all these things and more to be marked with the things of heaven.

I must decrease, He must increase. I must become like Him. He must be my very life source or I am not fully alive in Christ. It's divine, I realize. It also tears my heart out, on occasion. Lord, how can I bear your markings? How could I ever love like you love? How could I ever pour out my life like water, even unto death? I can not. And so this is where I give to you my inabilities and I say, "Do what you will with me." Do whatever it takes to make me like you. Brand my heart with fire! I give you permission. I surrender to you my free will offering and declare that I am not my own; I belong to you. You have purchased me with your blood. I have taken your name. Now...give me your heart!