Giving Up the Right to Yourself
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey · 2 min read
After human ties and possessions, Professor Gary Maxey names a third place of surrender: ourselves. In his book on the Highway of Holiness, he calls it the ultimate consecration.
The text
He turns again to Luke 14, where Jesus says anyone who does not carry his own cross cannot be his disciple. Professor Maxey quotes Oswald Chambers, who called this giving up our right to ourselves. It goes beyond the surrender of relationships and possessions. It is the surrender of the one who owns them.
Emptying before filling
Professor Maxey says that as consecration goes forward, we feel an increasing emptiness. We know we have given up everything. It may take days or weeks. He asks, how can God fill us until we are emptied? He notes that the disciples spent ten days in the Upper Room not wasting their time but emptying themselves.
Rees Howells
He tells of Rees Howells, one of the great intercessors of the last century. Howells had been serving God fervently for years. At twenty-six, God asked for a total surrender. In Howells' words, God said, "If I come in, I come as God, and you must go out." Howells felt he had received a death sentence. It took five days, which he spent alone with God, and he wept for days before he could decide.
Professor Maxey's own questions
He describes questions God put to him as a young man. Would he serve far from home, in isolation, with no one caring what he did? Then a harder question. Would he serve far from home while those at home looked on his work with displeasure, criticism and false accusations? He says he felt the pain of both before he answered.
The promise inside the cost
Professor Maxey does not offer this surrender as a grim duty. He says that if we got low before God and let the Spirit do this work, a holy fire could be released in our lives, our churches and our nation.
Reflection
Write two sentences. "I will not give up my right to ___." "I will not go to ___." Read them to God. Ask him if he wants either to stay on your list.
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey.
