No Turning Back

by Alisha Garza

There are so many beautiful, even stunning, examples of people that come to mind when I hear the words meek and loyal. I think of Daniel, faced with being mauled to death by lions. He remained steadfast and even blesses Darius the king the next morning, the very one who threw him into the pit! I think of Job, lost his immediate family in catastrophic disasters, his entire financial fortune (millions!) to bandits, and even his own health to agonizing boils. In his most intense season of grief, pain and even being blamed by his own friends, he remained wholly devoted to the Lord. I think of John the Baptist, standing for truth, crying out for people to repent, then thrown into prison and eventually beheaded because of it. I think of Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, brutally tortured in prison under the communism-regime of Romania and still ministering to their captors, all in unwavering love for our Lord. I think of Jim and Elizabeth Elliott. Jim speared to death for the gospel by the Auca tribe, and Elizabeth, his wife, going back to the very tribe that murdered her husband and leading many of them to Christ. We are over here getting mad at people who cut us off in traffic while our family in Iran and China right now are meeting and worshipping in secret, literally whispering praises in a basement, risking their lives to meet together!! I don’t say that to shame us. I’m just saying, none of these people could have remained this loyal if they hadn’t first experienced the burning love of our Lord, the One with fire in His eyes. Help us, Lord!

You guys, simply stated, we need a greater revelation of the love of God. Repentance helps us get there, and most definitely, discipline helps us stay there, but this isn’t a onetime deal. We don’t take our cars for an oil change one time and expect them to run the rest of our lives. Friends, we need to keep coming to Jesus for oil. We need to keep saying “yes” to Jesus. We need to keep coming back to Jesus for our daily bread. This doesn’t end after the fast. We need to be wrecked by His love, day after day after day. We need to be captivated by His faithfulness to be faithful! We need to be so consumed and so convinced that nothing else compares to loving Jesus! Nothing!! May Jesus truly be EVERYTHING to us. This is my prayer for us today:

Holy Spirit, so overtake our hearts in loyal love for Jesus our King that FOREVER we remain faithful and devoted and true no matter what our circumstances throw at us. Let us see You as You really are! Brand us with Your fiery love in such a way that we never turn back. Never!! May we remain resolutely in love for You even if our closest friends betray us, even if our backs are whipped and shredded, even if we are wrongly captured and falsely accused, even if we are abandoned. We really can only love like this because you loved us like this first. Like Stephen being stoned to death, may our gaze be lifted up and we cry out, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor!” (Acts 7:55) OH MY GOD, GIVE US A GREATER REVELATION OF JESUS!

And then, like the old hymn “I Have Decided” concludes, may our lives as living testimonies sing, “Though none go with me, still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back.” So be it, Lord!