Soul Surgery

What can I say?

We’ve all been through it…whether we entered the door willingly, even naively, or whether we were dragged through it kicking and screaming…we’ve all been to our own spiritual O.R.

It’s cold.

We’re exposed.

Sometimes draped to protect the parts that aren’t going to be worked on.

Sometimes slightly anesthetized, but most of the time NOT.

And the Holy, All-powerful Surgeon walks in and CUTS.

Oh!  The pain!

Excruciating.

Annihilating.

Mind-numbing PAIN.

What made us do it?

What made us pray that prayer?

What madness pushed us to ask God to make us more like His Son?

What caused us to give consent for the Creator of the Universe to surgically alter our souls?

What could have possibly possessed us to walk into that O.R. under our own volition and lie down on that altar and submit to the knife?

            Soul Surgery.  It is one of the most integral means our Creator and Father uses to take our hardened hearts and restore proper circulation and life into our dying spirits.  But the process is excruciating by necessity…or we can never reach intimacy with Christ, walk in our destiny in Him, understand our own hearts and identity, and partake of all the promises he has given us.  The key is submission, but the price is loss and pain. 

            Submitting to soul surgery is one of the most foundational issues we will ever face as Christians…how far will we allow God to go in re-creating us in His image and what will we allow him to do?  Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live because Christ lives in me, and the life I live now in the flesh, I can live because of the grace of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”  Again, in Philippians Paul says, “…that I might share in the fellowship of his suffering…”

            Sounds like loads of fun, doesn't it?  Yet we know that without undergoing "the knife" of the Holy Spirit, we will never develop depth of spirit or character.  And without His gentle surgical care, many things that lie deep inside us will never become exposed...and we will never grow more into the likeness of Jesus.  

            With this blog, I hope to "go there" with you; into the depths that we must sometimes plunge in order to be reborn a little more into the likeness of Jesus.  We'll talk about what it feels like to undergo surgery without the anesthesia and what it feels like to survive it...and recover and heal.  Keep your eyes open.  This is not going to be easy.