Have you noticed that parents with young children don’t spend a great deal of time teaching their toddlers to say NO? No comes naturally, and not just for two-year-olds.
While parents are shaping the words Momma and Daddy, children are fluently expressing the thoughts on their minds. NO!
Our earliest vocabulary is formed from a heart of selfishness. “Mine” and “No” are the foundation upon which early dialog is built.
Certainly there is an appropriate place for “no” in the language portfolio of a child, an adolescent and an adult, but navigating our way to the appropriate “Yes” is vital in shaping a vision for life and living.
Yes is the simple response we ask teenagers to express when they are asked to consider following Jesus. At the conclusion of a thirty-minute “solo time” at YFC Camp, the silence is broken with the powerful commitment and affirmation. YES! It cascades through the sky in unconstrained hope.
Yes. A courageous affirmation into a journey of faith.
Every invitation that Jesus posed to His disciples and the many others that He encountered was focused on the language of Yes.
“Will you?”
“Do you?”
“Would you?”
The narrow way to an unselfish Yes, is the trail to purpose and meaning. Yes is the trailhead to the adventure of a lifetime. It is the gateway to the promises of God.
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you…, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. (2 Corinthians 1:19-20, ESV)
A selfish “No” gives way to a sacrificial “Yes.” In Jesus. Through Jesus.
Yes. Not to one more thing… not to one more personal pleasure… not for the sake of comfort… But Yes to Jesus. Not just once, but daily… moment by moment.
He is the ultimate yes. He is the only yes. The yes above every yes.
I was born with No on my lips, but it was Jesus who said yes on the cross so that I could say yes to life. Yes to living. Yes to sacrificing. Yes to courage. Yes to serving and not being served. Yes to caring for the broken and marginalized. Yes to giving. Yes to loving. Yes to proclaiming. Yes to less of me… and so much more of Him. Yes to Jesus.
“…but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.”
Every promise of God. Yes in him.
Say it. Push “No” to the back of your throat and say it. Yes. Yes, Jesus. Yes.
I’m yours. I’m in. I’m willing.
It’s time for the church of Jesus to once again find their “Yes”… in Jesus.
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