Surrendering the Work

 It was a long day, and a hot one, when Ichibod gazed up at his work and saw that it was massive. For days, he and his many men had been laying bricks. Never before had he seen such a structure, and yet it still was not good enough. Would it ever be good enough? He didn't know, but, he thought himself and his men as the best brick layers in the world, and he believed he had the very best brick makers and morter making crews on his team. Yet, with all that, nothing like this had ever been attempted, so again he wondered, was this good enough? Were his efforts measuring up? How could he know? He wanted to reach God, how could he do so other than doing everything in his power to get there? It was getting dark, so he went home, little did he know that the very next day, an almighty God would see this as folly and intervene in a way Ichibod would never have dreamed. This shining city he had planned would be remembered, but not the way he expected, the blueprints he planned, and the name he chose would be lost to history, it would be remembered as an unfinished, confusing episode, to be chuckled at. It would be called the Tower of Babel. 

 So was Ichibod real? Not exactly, I made up the name, but yes, you can read how a whole bunch of men were Ichibod and tried to reach heaven through their own strength. See Genesis 11, especially verse 4. Later on, God's people hadn't even reached the promised land before they "needed" to make a physical thing to pray to. See Exodus 32. The golden calf was an idol, so obvious to us. The tower of Babel was foolishness, so obvious to us. However, what about us? Is there a thing we built? A thing that seems good, a thing that consumes us?

 Perhaps you own a business. Is your business a thing you do to reach God? What if you make a policy of being the most honest business man in town, and you thrive on not having any unhappy customers, and you love to solve problems. These are good things. Would to God there would be more businessmen like this. What if you have a ministry? What if as a pastor or counselor or whatever title you are, your a problem solver, and as people come to you with issues, you take care of them, your church takes care of them, your ministry takes care of them etc. This is good. Would to God, more ministries and churches actually cared about people's problems. Perhaps, you are an employee, and you have a job. You pride yourself in being punctual, working hard, and generally being the ideal worker, you use the money you earn to give generously. This is good, would to God, we had more workers like this. 

 So, what's the point? Well, let me make a simple example. Imagine with me a little fishing village by the sea. The best, and surest way to thrive in this environment is to know fish, and to be able to get fish, fish to sell, and fish to eat. In this village we have 2 workers, and these 2 workers are tasked with teaching the young men how to get fish. Both workers have a close friendship with the village mayor. The mayor knows fish. He taught the workers how to fish, and now he wants them to ensure that the young men get fish. Worker A faithfully trudges out every day and catches fish. Every night, he sets up a stand, and passes out the fish to people who come by, and they get their supply of fish from him. He works hard, feeding people is hard work. He works at improving his fishing abilities, he works at improving his stand, to feed more and more people. Worker B has no stand, he goes fishing almost every day, and he takes a young man with him. They come back with enough fish for each of them. He introduces the young man to the mayor, the young man becomes friends with the mayor, nearly as well as worker B. The young man moves on, and worker B takes out another young man. Meanwhile the first young man that worker B took out, has become worker C. Guess which worker he is like? If you guess that he is like his friend and mentor, you are right. So, over the course of 10 years, which worker has accomplished more? The one who gives fish day after day, or the one who raises up new workers? For by now, there is a whole alphabet of workers and then some. 

 What was the difference? Worker A was looking at how many fish he could give to the people for the Mayer. Worker B, was interested in getting people connected to the source of fish. It is not what you do that matters, what matters here is who owns your work. Is your work something you work hard at for the Lord, or is it the Lord's work that you allow Him to use you to accomplish? Worker B was sensitive to the work of getting people connected with fish effectively. Worker A took the work, and made it his own, and became the biggest fish restaurant in town. Worker A was more known. Worker B was more effective. 

 In 2018, a French man named Romain Dumas drove a specially made Volkswagen car to a record setting time at the Pikes Peak hill climb. He made it to the top in under 8 minutes. Here is the video. So, the car was specially made for the climb. The climb was the work. Romain Dumas was the right driver for the job. What if you are specially made and completely unique for a work? Is there anyone else like you? I didn't think so. So, the question is, are you the right person to drive you? The work of driving up Pikes belonged to Romain Dumas. The work you are made for belongs to the Lord, who should be in the driver's seat? For this to happen, the car was fully surrendered to Romain, every switch, every pedal, and even the steering yoke was immediately responsive to him. Watch the video, notice how the car flows through the bends, always on the limit, and yet never tumbling off the side of the mountain. This is a flawed analogy, perhaps even a bad one, but shouldn't our life flow like that car? Imagine that car having a will of it's own, fighting Romain's inputs and countering them with it's own? How might the scene look? Would there be a twitching back and forth, costing valuable time? Perhaps even a huge crash that destroys the car? Probably. 

Matthew 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

Christ saw the multitude, and he went up, up the mountain. Only the disciples came. In the following verses, we will see how he spoke to them and they heard about the nature of his work. Today, will you be a multitude gazing up, or a disciple, following Christ into the mountain? Your not knowing why, or what will happen next, but knowing that Christ is who you wish to be with. If so, welcome to discipleship. 

The Organic Nature of Spiritual Leadership

 I have not attained, I am learning and studying, and I have seen within myself this cycle, of being God focused and effective, and then, becoming proud, and losing the ability to be effective in the process, which then leads to low self esteem and even less effectiveness, at which point I turn to God finally and restart the cycle. I repent to all who witness of the pride in all it's forms, for self focus is pride, and strive to be God focused in all things, even when facing death. Feel free to read over my shoulder as I learn in front of you and lead me to deeper truths where I might be off the tracks. 

 The Roman officer knew that there must be a God, and he reached out into the spiritual realm to find God, he wanted relationship. His heart was positioned correctly, for he was seeking God on God's terms and not constructing a god on his terms. The Lord rewarded this man, and sent an angel from Heaven itself to point him in the right direction. He told the officer to get Peter and where to find him. Meanwhile, Peter, was walking in such close fellowship with the Lord, that he had gone to the roof to talk with him, and while he was there, he saw a vision. In this vision, the Lord said to not call unclean what he cleansed, the vision was an invitation to eat animals that were deemed unclean per the Jewish law. When the men arrived from the Roman officer, whose name was Cornelius, Peter knew the Lord wanted him to share The Lord with the gentiles, and so Peter did, Cornelius bowed to Peter, but he stopped him abruptly and immediately pointed him to the Lord as the only one worthy of any worship. (Acts 10) 

  There came a time when Peter visited Antioch, and while he was there, he caved to peer pressure and ate only with the Jews and not the Gentiles. Paul confronted him on this matter. Peter had made a decision that was selfish, and not a decision of the Lord. Peter remained an apostle, the rock the Lord built his church on, but, this incident dented his spiritual leadership and he was called to task and led back in line by another leader. (Galatians 2) 

 Paul and Peter both met in Jerusalem, along with other leaders and had a discussion about whether or not the gentiles should be circumcised. Opinions were floated back and forth, and the meeting went on for a while with a lot of arguing. Finally, after everyone had their say, a leader took the floor, he had the authority to pull together the whole discussion and share the correct answer, all the others listened as he spoke, it was not Peter, and it was not Paul. It was James. (Acts 15) 

 So, what are my takeaways? A leader is someone who leads, obviously, so in the physical realm, it is the owner of the business who has the power to lead or to appoint the leader. That is authority. Authority is power of sorts, power to influence, and power to lead. This power, comes from knowing, or having an invested interest. A general carries a lot of authority in the army, he has been there a long time, and he has invested interest and knowledge in the whole mechanism of the army. In the spiritual, we see where Christ modeled the idea that we are completely given up to the Lord. We partner with Him, and we lay hold of His call, and His desires. In fact, it would seem wise to lay before Him and get daily marching orders from Him. If you do this, your spiritual authority grows and you begin to be a spiritual leader. If you stop and notice your status as a spiritual leader and spend time thinking about your goodness, your spiritual authority begins to dim, and then you find yourself needing to be led more than before. So, ultimately, don't focus on being someone, don't focus on being any of the people that were discussed here. Don't focus on titles, don't focus on speaking well for the Lord, don't focus on fixing people for the Lord. Focus on the Lord. Seek Him like Cornelius did, whatever that looks like for you. Partner with Him in whatever He shows you. Allow him to minister to you grace, strength, and whatever He wants you to have, The overflow from Him onto others will completely overpower any pouring you might have been able to do for Him in the past. Out of this overflow, you will find yourself reaching down, and pulling others up out of trouble, and pointing them to Christ, for those are the fundamental things that great spiritual leaders do; because for a spiritual leader, it is all about Christ, and the goal is to draw others close to Him, for, whatever the problem, He is the answer.

 I also think leaders are leaders in many different areas, take this fictional (I hope) example. The great preacher, Tala Minister has spent all of Saturday afternoon prostrate before the Lord seeking from him what the Lord would have his people hear. The Lord shows Tala that his people are His, Tala gives his people to the Lord, and asks the Lord to speak. Tala surrenders his mouth to the Lord, and writes down the deep revelations the Lord gives him. Meanwhile his wife, Lyssnande Minister quietly goes about the house, sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, and as she works, she is keenly aware of her husband's struggle, and she prays for him. That evening, Tala, full of power and overflowing, cares for his wife, and asks about her day, he washes the evening dishes, and then together they sit on the sofa and he cares for her heart. Sunday morning, the couple gets up, and prepares for the meeting of the church. Tala is so excited about what the Lord will do, he keeps pacing, thinking, and praising, finally Lyssnande is also ready, and Tala is headed for the door when Lyssnande says, "Tala! You forgot your pants!" 

 So, who was the leader in that goofy example? Tala or Lyssnande? The answer is....yes. In their own ways, both, being faithful to the Lord, were leaders. Are you a Tala or a Lyssnande? We need both. 

Why Surrender?

  I enjoy history, and for this chapter I would like for us to think about why we surrender, we need a paradigm shift in our mind. It is obvious that surrender is a bad thing in this world, and yet, it is vital for victory in God’s kingdom, or as I will often call it, the Kingdom of Heaven. We see traces of God’s victory in surrender policy in nature. He created this world, and it has His stamp and His ways in it. 

 China was taken aback, the Japanese had come, China was not prepared for the sheer brutality of it all. One world power (China) had to surrender Nanking to another (the Japanese), and thus began one of the worst atrocities the world has ever known. Years later, the Japanese found themselves between a rock and a hard place. The "Soviet rock" was invading and  pushing back their army, and the "American hard place" was dropping brand new mushroom cloud shaped cruelties like the world had never seen onto their cities. The world power of Japan surrendered control of their nation to the world power most apt to show them mercy, "the hard place". In Europe the same basic thing played out, A France unprepared for Germany surrendered it's nation to them, A Germany caught between a rock and a hard place ceased to exist as a nation for the next 40 plus years. For in this world, surrender is always tied to defeat, and in many cases, shame, oppression, and unimaginable suffering. 

 The Kingdom of Heaven is both mightier than all world kingdoms combined and it shifts paradigms in ways that cannot be fully appreciated by humans. Let's look at the leader of the Kingdom of heaven, a man named Jesus Christ. This man actually was a real human representative from the unseen realm, and he truly demonstrated what Watchman Nee would call "The Normal Christian Life." He reached out with his hands, and made mud that he used for healing, oh, and he was a blue collar worker, he did carpentry until probably age 30. His hands got dirty. He had a mind that was sharp, and divinely inspired, no Pharisee could cope with the "intellectual buzzsaw" of Jesus Christ's mind. They tried many times in many ways, and yet he would never be cornered and always gave the spectators a deep truth to ponder. Then there were all the times he cared. He cared about the shame a groom might experience and quietly made more wine without drawing attention to himself. He cared about his disciples, and calmed the sea, so they would not fear. He came alongside Peter and pulled him up onto the water again. When it would have been easier physically to command the sea to put Peter back in the boat, he came alongside him instead. 

 In typical world fashion, the time came when the powers of Jesus' world coalesced into an uneasy alliance to do away with him. They did not know the power he had to rain terror down on the entire earth from the heavenly hosts, if they had, they would not have tried to defeat him. Since they did not understand this, they looked strictly through an earthly lens, and decided that bringing Jesus to a place of surrender would be the way to get rid of Him. However, Jesus, unbeknownst to them, "flipped the script" and played along. He allowed them to press a crown of thorns into his head, puncturing his brain, and ruining the fineness of his intellect. He allowed them to drive the nails into those outstretched hands that had so often reached out to help and end suffering, thereby scarring them for eternity. He even allowed them to drive a spear into his side, (that side that came alongside the suffering, the depressed, and encouraged them so often) creating a wound that also formed a scar for eternity. He was laid in the grave, and he had surrendered all.

 It was the 3rd morning in the grave, Jesus got up and stretched, he felt his side, his hands, his head. Scars, but no pain. He walked out of the grave, and manifested a new power, a power to appear at any time and anywhere. A power to impart himself inside any human who was willing to receive. It was a far more profound victory than the military kind had ever been, and it had been achieved through the strategy of surrender. So today, we have wandering around this earth so many "little Christs" (Christians) and the only thing that keeps them all from experiencing ultimate victory is their refusal of ultimate surrender. The only thing that keeps the whole world from experiencing world peace, the end of at least the vast majority of, if not all suffering, and poverty, and all manner of horrible afflictions is again, ultimate surrender.  

 I hope you are seeing how in the Kingdom of Heaven, surrender is a path to victory. There is a paradigm shift, and you can see this in nature. In the example of the butterfly for you see there once was an egg, and the egg was broken. Out of this egg came a worm, the worm lived, it grew, it changed colors, it developed an antenna, and did the things that worms do. One day, the worm is done, done with life as a worm, and so it forms a shell, and boxes itself in. It remains in this shell of it's own making for quite some time, it seems safe in here, and yet for some reason, in some divinely ordered way the shell breaks, it is broken, and the worm is dead, the worm has surrendered to the laws of it’s Creator. The creator has raised new life, and we call it a butterfly, it then spends its days flitting above the worms, and splashing it's colors and cheer within the gorgeous color display that is summer. The butterfly has a freedom that escapes other insects. To do this, it had to be broken twice, first as an egg, then as a shell, and it had to die to it's "worm nature." To be led by  and surrendered to those divinely given instincts is why it worked. It would not do for the worm to force itself out of the shell in it's own "wormly strength", for then it could not fly. It would not do for the butterfly to remain "safe" in the shell, for then it could not fly. 

  As a human, made in the image of God and given your own divine stamp of uniqueness, you too were made for more. You were not made to merely live as an intelligent mammal with a sense of right and wrong that eludes the animals. You were made for fellowship with God. The following questions are for those who have accepted that message and have a connection with the only living God. Question is, do you believe that your old self has been crucified with Christ? Are you willing to trust God to fill you with Him so that you can fly in His time and way? Or do you wish to choose to live within the walls of your own making? Or maybe you wish to live life at a worm like crawl? What you believe about that person you see in the mirror has nothing to do with the reality of your sin nature being crucified, this has happened, and it is when you believe this and accept it as the truth that it is, that you can live as you are. A saint on earth.

 Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Surrendering to Who?

 The title seems obvious, doesn’t it? Surrender to God, of course, but, who is God? Well, He loves you, and this also seems obvious, and He is your father, but, when you think of a father, your mind goes back to your dad, and his imperfections. At least that’s what mine does. God has a passionate love for you, a love so strong that He created you. He wouldn’t have had to create you, but, create you He did. Why? Well, let’s go back, way back to our beginning. We can’t go back to God’s beginning, he has no beginning.

  In a vast expanse of nothingness, with no matter, and no time, there was a lonely God, this God, the only true God, the only God worthy of the capital G, decided to create a world, and so He did. In this world he placed a man and a woman, both representing His image in physical form to this new, glorious, beautiful world. The Lord sought a relationship, a free will love He bestowed on them both, and this love was returned by free will by these humans. For you see, the Lord gave them a garden, and in this garden, they were told to partake of all the plants and trees, save one, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Lord did not instill fear into them by telling them of the horrors of eating from that tree. He wanted their love, and He gave them love, unspeakable, and unimaginable love.

 Unfortunately, the bad tree was eaten from, and the lovely new world was a wreck. The humans experienced a brand new emotion, fear, fear of being caught, fear of pain, fear of the wrath of God by sin. They had chosen knowledge, and now the price was already being paid. The world descended into chaos, kingdoms arose, all built on hierarchy, religions came, also built on hierarchy, wars came, plagues, death, pain, sorrow, unspeakable evils blemished the world, mankind failed to follow the law that they now knew, because they could not do it.

 God, all knowing and all wise, had a plan, to redeem everyone. So, in an unfathomable way, this God came to earth as a little baby, born into poverty, and he worked hard. He started to preach, he spoke of a new kingdom, that was not of this world, referred to as the kingdom of Heaven, or the kingdom of God. In this kingdom, there were no boundaries, it was not to be a violent kingdom establishing hierarchies, fighting over borders, and religion. It was to be an all encompassing kingdom of redeemed souls, loved by God, and this Lord would put His spirit within each redeemed soul. In this manner, the redeemed soul would be free, not to sin, which is its own punishment, but free from sin, and not redeemed to fear law, but redeemed to God, dead to the world and very much alive in God.

 This man, who was somehow 100% a man, and yet 100% the Lord, went by Jesus Christ, and He was the son of God. God, as it turns out is 3 and yet still 1. There is His spirit, His son, and Him. Yet He is one God. After only a few short years, the religious system of this day was so fed up with Christ that they talked the Roman Empire into dealing out His execution, and in typical Roman style it was brutal, a bloody lashing, designed to physically break a man, and inwardly crush his will, and then they nailed him to a cross, but before this they did something unspeakably cruel and illegal, after Jesus’ body was already smashed up from the beatings and lashings, they wove together a crown of thorns and smashed it into his skull, only then was He allowed to go to the cross and get the suffering and torment over with. He went to the cross, died and was buried.

 On the 3rd day, things went wild, somehow, the tombstone rolled away and Jesus was back, and this time He didn't use doors, He just showed up whenever and wherever He wanted. Clearly now, this man was God, and the redemption was paid, and available free of charge to the entire world, before the cross, during, and after. So, if you are a Christian, you have a God, who is so crazy over you, that he would create an entire world, and die the worst death, just to love you and to be loved by you. This God will destroy your religion, and rob you of your fear in order to love you, and to be loved by you. That is if you'll let Him, He loves you enough to give you free will, freedom to reject Him, to fear Him instead, to worship something or someone else instead. So what is a man or a woman to do with a God who loves him/her this much? It's up to you to answer this question.

 There are many specific examples of how God looks after His own. For example, once, a long time ago, the Lord looked at the world he had created and saw that it was a total wreck. It needed a deep clean. However, he told one of his that he was going to do this. He gave him instructions on how to float above it all. Noah was the man’s name, and he followed those instructions. The Lord gave him strength to do the work. Did the Lord know that after saving Noah’s life, he would get drunk and be indecent? Did he know that his descendants would try to build a tower to him and that he would have to create language barriers to stop it? Of course, but the Lord preserved Noah and his family, because Noah and his family were his. 

Surrender!? To Who? (Introduction)

This is the introduction and index to a free eBook concept I'm trying out on this blog. As time passes, I will add surrender-themed chapters down below that can be clicked and read independently. My youngest brother did the artwork, it is very good, isn't it? 

Your author has not yet fully surrendered. I am on this journey with you. I grew up in a culture of will. I willed myself to do the right things for God. I want to thank my parents for the example of surrender to God they laid before me. I want to thank my wife for being ever-present support, a safe place to bounce ideas, a listening ear, my best friend, and my love. 

So, why write about surrender? It’s an overarching theme in the scriptures when a Bible character who we look up to finds himself or herself at a crossroads, they chose to surrender. This includes repentance, for repentance is a form of surrender. It is to give up our way and turn back, to God's way. Think of Abraham, going up the mountain, with his only son, who he loved so much, and he laid his Isaac down before the Lord. Think of Esther, who when her people were faced with a crisis, of death itself, laid her life down before the Lord. There are so many more examples, in the Bible, and in times since then, and even today of people who came to these crossroads and made their choice. Then some chose not to surrender or repent. Think of Pharaoh, faced with many plagues, plagues that decimated the economy of Egypt, killed their sons, and shook their faith in their gods, he chose to keep doing it his way, and at the bottom of the red sea, he found himself, quite dead, and finally defeated. Think of Jezebel, a conniving and cunning woman, who plotted the death of a farmer, and attempted to assassinate the Lord’s prophet. She went her way, and finally, found herself thrown off the wall to the dogs, and finally defeated. 

 

In this book, an important component of surrender is repentance as defined in the New Testament. For, when I study the Greek words originally used in the New Testament, repentance means, to change direction. When in the context of sin, the type of surrender needed is always repentance. A turn from sin, and a giving of one’s self to the Lord. This is surrender. Not all surrender involves repenting though. There may be a good thing, a true and beautiful and wonderful thing, that the Lord would ask you to fully surrender to him. Think back to Abraham, Isaac was not a sin, but he was to be surrendered. The creation of Ishmael was a sin, to be repented of. So, Abraham would have surrendered that ability to “make God’s will happen” by his own strength when he repented of the sin in trying to do it. The word surrender does not appear in the King James New Testament, however, it is a word that is used in our English, so I will talk about surrender, and yet, in scripture, the expression that applies is, “submit yourself.” This means to subordinate, to obey, and to be subject to. This is the definition I am thinking of when I speak of surrender.

There are many times in life, when you will find yourself at a crossroads, to your right, you can surrender the thing to the Lord, and the outcome then lies in His hands. Or you can keep the thing and turn left, and the outcome will be the consequences of your actions while you keep that thing. This book is to be an encouragement, to turn right as a culture in life, whenever and wherever, your crossroads may appear, turn right, again, again, and again. God bless.

My virtual "editor" tells me what you read above comes across as sad and nervous. Hm. I hope not. I love God's Kingdom, so, in this whole theme of surrender, let's look at God's Kingdom. We are merely giving up things of this world and ways about us in exchange for deeper loyalty to God's Kingdom as a lifestyle both in our loyalties and in the ways we are. We are looking for that kind of full allegiance to God's Kingdom, where we are happy to physically die if that's what it calls for. Each of the links below will take you to a blog post that is designed to do 2 things. 1. To stand on its own is a digestible blog post with no context needed, and 2. To flow with the blog post before it and after it. Hopefully, they do. So, feel free to treat this post as a landing pad. It is pinned to the top right corner of this blog. Click on the links below as you wish, if you click on them in the order listed, they will hopefully flow together.

Surrendering to Who?

Why Surrender?

Surrendering the Work

Surrendering the Spirit

Surrendering Sorrow

Defining Meekness

Surrendering Our Margins

Trading "Smarts" for Righteousness

Surrendering Rightness for Righteousness

Just One More Lord

To be Pure Hearted or Not; That is the Question.

Our Peace or Real Peace?

Persecution

God's Kingdom

Salt & Light

The Power of the Lifestyle

Anger vs Hatred

Religious Paradigms

Who draws your Relationship Circle?

 

 As you behold the magnificence of my art work, jk ;) Think of the idea that we all find ourselves in a circle of relationship, you see the circles surrounding dots. Think of the dots as us, humans, think of the rectangle in the center as the Lord's table, and think of this whole thing as happening in your spiritual man, in the realm above this world. On a side note, please realize that every dot belongs in it's own circle, and the circles overlap, and you have dots in your circle with you while you are in their circles with them etc and so forth. I did not attempt to draw all that because I felt it would be hard to see the actual picture then. 

 So, you are a Christian? Good, then the Lord's spirit dwells inside you, and you belong to Him, and you are being drawn to Him. You are being drawn to the spiritual dining table with the Lord. All around you, you see other Christians being drawn to the Lord's table, closer, and closer you go. Is it a race? yes, and sort of no. At least no, in worldly terms. For it is a race as Paul said, but it is a matter of finishing, not a matter of finishing first. In this world we think of a race as a set distance everyone gets to at differing times, and he who is first is winner. In this spiritual race, we are about the finish, and we are about the helping of others to that finish, the finish is the victory, and we want to see many, many, victories. We want to see as many people join the Lord at his table as possible, and we know this is the Lord's desire, for He has created us for relationship with Him. Please know that most of what I am writing below has to do with how we live our lives in relationship to the Lord out of the new man, identity, life he has given us, and then eat at his table in the next phase of eternal life, if someone is in a stagnant spot, just waiting to die and be placed at the table. I am not commenting on weather or not they will be at the table, the Lord knows the heart of a man/woman, I do not. Also, analogies, have their flaws, you may criticize the analogy all you wish, and I may very well agree with you, but I would rather you take away these 2 things, am I moving? If so, which way? Also, who maintains my circle walls?

 Now, we look at the business of helping victory, God has given us each a circle, and as we move closer to the Lord, our circle moves, we are always at the center of this circle, because this is our relationship circle. Other people have their circles, and theirs overlap with ours, we find ourselves in many other peoples' circles with many other people being in ours. As we move closer to God, so does our circle, other people in our circle feel encouraged, or strengthened to move close to God as well. However, they can leave the circle at the back and stay where they are, and you should let them. New people come into your circle at the front, for your encouragement, to them and to you. It does cause a little pain, in many cases a lot of pain. You are leaving circles from time to time as well you know. If you are in someone's relationship circle, and your journeying closer to the Lord, and that other person is not, you may find yourself gradually leaving that relationship behind and leaving that person's circle. You still love this person just as much, but when that person needs you to choose between him/her and the Lord, choose the Lord. 

 Let's look at the wall of your circle, I believe the Lord is a being with a lot of free will in regards to relationships, you can chose Him or you can reject Him, the walls He draws for your relationship circle are quite porous and broken, this is deliberate, to allow people to move in and out more freely. I don't see our Lord as someone who is a big fan of cults, or cliques. You have the ability to strengthen these walls though, by making them solid, you can keep people out of your relationship circle if they do not dress the way you want them to. If they do not drink the right things. If the sins they tolerate are different from the sins you tolerate. These and other things are all reasons to keep people out, but, consider this, what if these people are on the path to the Lord's table? How are you planning to get around them when you come upon them? You could have a porous circle and walk alongside them, but if you need to keep them out, then, you either stay behind, or walk around, some how? How? I don't know....I really don't. People who are in your man made circle walls cannot be kept in against their will completely, but you can make it hard for them to leave, by using the Devil's weapons on them, things like, shame, rejection, and maybe other things. However, your circle is defined for you by your church you say? Ok then, but, did the living God who came down and hung out with a traitor like Judas, a tax collector like Matthew, a big mouth hotheaded coward like Peter, and scandalous women like the woman at the well in Samaria and Mary Magdalene draw these rigid boundaries? So, do you think the bride of Christ would be different? What if when Christ said in Matthew 18:17 to let him be to you as a heathen, he intended that we treat heathens the way He does? How did He treat them? The ones who wanted it, got a new identity in Him, the ones who didn't, got to remain heathen. So, if you have someone in your hard walls who doesn't want to move with you, do you remain still in place? Does your spiritual growth remain bound by the people stuck inside your walls with you while the Lord keeps calling, calling, and calling? 

 As you walk, closer and closer to the Lord's table in your soul, and you let him define your boundaries for you, your friends come and go, painful things happen, your convictions, and grasp of the Lord's truth actually get stronger and deeper, for God's laws and ways are always and still right. Yet, your willingness to accept people where they are at grows as well, for all you do is walk to the person in his/her sinful muck and point to Christ, you don't drink the muck, you just help them out of it. That is, if they want help. Finally, one day, probably after this physical life, and into the next phase of the eternal life God has given you, which you are already living right now, if you have received His life; you pull up a chair at the Lord's table, and you will probably be shocked by who you see across the table from you. That someone might be someone who you never ever imagined walking with in a meaningful spiritual relationship. However, the Lord knew them all along, just as He knew you.