Last week, all of the DTS students watched a sermon by Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM, about relinquishing our rights. Now the theme of relinquishing our rights to things seems to be a pervasive theme in the lessons we have been learning so far in DTS. I feel as though a lot of things we struggle with in our Christian walk find their roots in a failure to surrender things to God and trust him completely. I am realizing so many things about how relinquishing rights relates to missionary work, and how the areas of my life that I haven't relinquished to God are hindering me in my personal spiritual growth.
The relinquishment of rights is the release into the rewards of a relationship with God. We see this with numerous characters of the Bible. Daniel was willing to relinquish the rights to his life and trust God when he was thrown in the lion's den. Was he rewarded? He sure was! Paul gave up lots of rights. For example, he could have been a great religious leader, but he relinquished his rights to his reputation and success. He also relinquished his rights to life as Daniel did, and was martyred as a result. But was he rewarded when he got to heaven? You bet! These men and others in the Bible are examples for us, yet Christ is our greatest example of relinquishment of rights. No one relinquished more rights than Jesus Christ. And Jesus experienced the greatest rewards of relationship with his father.
The key to ministry, specifically missions and world evangelism is relinquishing our rights. We must die to our rights if we want to submit our lives to the Lord in ministry. If we don't relinquish rights, we don't give God control to be working miracles in and through our lives. The best part of this is that we will always get God's best when we let him choose. When we say to God, "Rid me of myself," he will bring so much freedom into our lives that we will ask ourselves why we had been so hesitant to do so in the first place.
After realizing how crucial the relinquishment of rights is not only to ministry, but also to my personal walk with the Lord, I needed to think about how to identify the areas of my life that I haven't relinquished to God. Of course praying about it and asking God to reveal them is crucial. Also just thinking about things that you lose your temper over, you haven't relinquished. If you have truly surrendered something to God, you cannot be upset about it, because you no longer can hold any claim to it. This is really challenging, because we have been told our whole lives that we have rights to things and we have ownership over things. Even more challenging is maintaining our relinquishments. Just because we surrender something once, does not mean that we won't have to relinquish that right again in the future. We have to renew our relinquishments, just as we would renew our driver's license.
It helps me to remind myself that nothing is actually mine; it is all God's, and he has graciously gifted me with them. I also know that the rewards of relationship with God will far outweigh the "sacrifices" I have to make in relinquishing rights. Not only will I gain greater intimacy with my heavenly Father, but my ministry will also be strengthened. I am praying that God will reveal to me bit by bit the areas in which I need to relinquish rights to him and provide me the strength to do so. I want to loosen my grip on the things of this life-- like freedom, family, reputation, finances, friends. I want less of me and more of God, and that means relinquishing my rights.
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