How to Lose Your Soul – Part VI

On-less

Sometimes on is above in.

It seems such a small thing…just an o and for an i…one vowel for another. So strange that your destiny should hinge on two two-letter words, huh? I believe in a lot of things…but I believe on a very few.

I believe in food, doctors, nurses, and medicine more than Tomahawk missiles. But I don’t believe on any of them.

I believe in Christian service and relief missions…not award ceremonies for Christian music and entertainment. Yet I don’t believe on any of them.

I believe in lifelong learning…not simply degrees. But I don’t believe on either.

I believe in home churches…not churches run like businesses. But I don’t believe on any particular one.

I believe in inward life…not just believing the right things. But I don’t believe on them.

Believing in The Luminous Lamb of the Wounds is far different than believing on Him. One is a mental activity…the other is a spiritual exploit. You can agree with something intellectually and not willfully rely on it. Peter believed in Jesus…but found it wholly different to step on the troubled waters.

You see—I can believe in My Soul’s Only Faithful Friend and still remain in the boat…only believing in Him.

Your boat may be a little different than mine…but mine is made from planks of privately held beliefs…many of which I’ve joined unconsciously and haven’t examined for their seaworthiness. Part of me, for example, really thinks God is slow regarding His promises…and that if anything is going to get done…I’ll have to do it myself. Watching and waiting upon Him isn’t something I’ve built my life on…and now I consciously have to allow God to remove whole sections of my hull.

Bad angels believe in Him…not on Him.

Here is a manly feat— “There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.…” (John 13:23). How heroic “on” can be! What John did bodily, we can do inwardly. We can willingly (which means spiritually…the invisible place where our Heart chooses)…lay our dreams, affections, longings, and languishing souls on the Loveliest Jesus.

You can do this as you drive….You can do this when you’ve been insulted….You can do this when you feel distant…You can do this recurrently…even as the Sweet Spirit of Jesus brings you to remembrance.

Some might find this unmanly advice. But let me ask you—is it a manful act to drown? To manfully refuse to scramble upon the one line of rescue extended to you? Doing the right thing is heroic…even if you feel silly at first.

Repeat to Him when you find yourself becoming more in than on—“I was made to cling on to You like a belt.”

The alternative is to remain unchanged on the inside.

As you lay your weary head on your pillow tonight, He will even permit you to rehearse placing your head on His chest. He won’t mind.

“For as the belt holds on to a man’s body,
so I made the whole family of Israel and the whole family of Judah hold on to Me,’ says the Lord.
‘This was so that they might be for Me a people, a name, a praise, and an honor [beauty].
But they would not listen.”

Jeremiah 13:11

Copyright 2013

If you were blessed by this article, you may also like Robin Wren’s How to Lose Your Soul Part V.

Click here to learn more about the gifted author Robin Wren

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