When You Have Nothing Left to Give

Collapsed.

That two-story, grey house, with the wrap around porch was spotted in ashes this week. It sat along the traintracks…

This house, that I imagined before housing complexes, chain malls and a nursing home took over, hosting loads of travelers going along their way.

I once dreamed of restoring it’s bones. Filling it with children.

Because lets face it, this is our second home we remodeled and seeing children restored, has become my life work.

And we all know, beauty can be found in the polishing of old.

Even Hollywood loves a redemption story, glam and glory sparkling for all to see.

But, I have been humbled as I have seen the polishing of social media lately…

“New” bodies, “new” rooms in homes, “new” pivots, as if elbow grease and hard work allow us to “taste” the Kingdom.

In contrast, they lay upon their faces, on a dirty parking lot in Southwest Florida.

Which doesn’t seem strange or odd to me.

In fact, it’s the revival of hearts I am much more comfortable with, than still, cold, motionless pew-sitting.

I long to jump right through the screen, lay hands on the broken crying out to Him, watch the resurrection of dead lives, rise again, new, clean.

I remember the day our entire family was baptized. At the time our family was four, not nine.

We went under the water one way, signifying, dying to our old sin, and rising again, a whole new person.

We didn’t just “take a bath”. Our dunking signified us giving up ourselves, and taking on the newness of Christ.

Yet, the gospel message I have been witnessing lately, hasn’t been death-to-life, old-to-new.

It has been about polishing and working, laboring and striving, fighting to see how good we can “remodel” the inside of our being.

Yet, aren’t we all unworthy laborers? Unsufficient servants? Incompetent givers?

And what we offer God shouldn’t be some car-wash experience, some “fix-me-up” challenge, a decorating experiment that strives its way to beautiful.

How often do we stand in the mirror? Look at our life? Measure our worth? Evaluate how good we are doing, in comparison to others?

If we are dead, truly dead to sin, like Paul suggests in Romans 6:2, what good is there left in us? Do we even play a part in letting God remodel us, into His holy imagine?

Aren’t we  all like ash, when we crawl to His glory? Truly accepting of His goodness? Recognizing there is none of us righteous, no, not one.

All have turned aside and are worthless, apart from Him. (Romans 3:11)

Aren’t our best efforts simply filthy rags? All our works like a leaf shriveled up, striving somehow for more? (Isaiah 64:6)

Aren’t we that paint-chipped house, uninhabitable, though once beautiful, laying on the ground, now in a pile of ashes? Unredeemable, unrestorable? Unable to resurrect itself?

I heard it said the other day, “Obedience is redemption.”

I believe that, but not in the way this pastor preached. And yet, I know some in works based religions can see this as true, as equivelant to sanctification.

But, I believe it was not ours, but Christ’s obedience that led to our redemption. It was His sacrifice, His paying the price, His giving His life and resurrection, that allows us a doorway to stand, made new, in front of Him…

Dead but alive, crucified with Christ, but now set free. (Galations 2:20)

We cannot redeem ourselves.

We cannot restore ourselves.

We cannot strive our way to holiness, because even the effort to give our lives away, is simply an act of grace.

And who is foolish enough to think they could ever earn grace?

Flat on their faces on cement pavement…THIS is redemption. Dead to sin. Recognizing that we are not servant’s in our own merit.

Nothing, we contribute.

Surrender, is all we have to give.

David Platt shares, “We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around ourselves, when the central message of Christianity is actually abandoning oursleves.”

Have we abandoned ourselves? Have we seen and let our lives become, like ashes along the railroad tracks, begging for a Redeemer to scoop them up, leaving something new in its place?

My eight-year-old pointed to three crosses, as we drove down the hill from my other daughter’s semi-private school. “Why are there three crosses, Mom? Didn’t Jesus just die on one?”

I realized since her returning to our house as a foster placement, at four and a half, I had not told her yet, of the murderers hanging next to Jesus on the day that He was crucified.

“Yes, Sweetie! Jesus just died on one cross.”

Then, I share on about the murderers that hung by Jesus’ side. I told her how the one testified, Jesus was without sin. And how Jesus told him, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

And to think, all of her past, simply washed away. God cancelling my own sin, as if it had never existed.

God redeems, yes. But He first allows the wrecking. He waits, like a gentleman, until we get to the point that dust has settled all around us.

It is then, we see the futility of all we’ve strived for; all we are pursuing…Fall down on our faces to accept the free gift He’s given.

Grace is the beautiful exchange for our nothingness. Beauty is given for our ashes. New life is the handoff for our brokenness.

So, let’s step off the treadmill that lies to us, telling us we just need to do more, try harder….

Yet, leaves us nowhere. Empty. Needy. Striving for redemption.

And no, we can’t earn our way to revival, to newness, or healing.

But we can lay down at His feet, holding nothing but ash and bones, as He exchanges our ashes for beauty and a life that’s new, whole.

We are unworthy servants, contributing nothing.

There is power in His blood. Redemption’s glory is in the cross He hung on. Victory is found in His strips, not ours.

If a murderer who hung by Jesus can walk with our Savior that same day in Paradise…

Why do we strive in our own efforts, think our being good, and just trying harder, will somehow get us closer to Him?

Jesus threw the scale away.

Jesus paid the price, so all we aren’t, can be replaced with all His is, in us.

What are you waiting for? Come to Him.

And don’t let anyone tell you…

You have to be perfect, before finding Jesus.

The sinners on the pavement crying for Him…

The old house, laying in dust and ashes…

And the murderer hanging on the cross next to Jesus, all knew that.

Won’t you give Him your filthy rags, and watch what He exchanges for them?

It’s o.k. if like mine, your hands are empty. You don’t have to have anything to give….

Because friends, today…

Nothing is enough for Him.