No your rights.

Children of God have no rights. They have inheritance. They have gifts. They have the honors bestowed them by their Father. They have the invitations of people of the world into different spheres of impact and influence. They have nothing in of themselves. They have everything in and of God.

To state your rights as a believer before non-believers is a defeat. Spiritually we have overcome. Physically often we are overcome. But ultimately we have overcome and will overcome. How? By the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our Testimony.

When we defend ourselves, or even other believers before evil governments, it is almost always a defeat in the spiritual realm of the advance of the Kingdom of Christ. “My Kingdom is not of this world, or else they would fight.”

Nothing is worth losing your reputation as a harmless, gentle, passionate, truth speaking, lover of mankind and of God. Nothing. Surrendering to the removal of your rights actually emphasizes to the world that you are who you say you are. Not surrendering, deemphasizes you as being truly a lover of Jesus and child of God. There on the cross, while Jesus endured the complete surrender of himself and His rights before God and man; naked, bloody, mutilated, and dangling like a piece of flesh on a stick, there, the most hardened of mankind, a roman executioner and soldier said of Him, “truly this was the Son of God.” Could you imagine more painful words to utter from your own lips, after having excuted that man - The Son of God? Talk about agony in the night. That man must have had agony, unless he had conversion by this experience.

The same lips that demand their own rights will be found withholding the rights of others. When was the last time you demanded of yourself the rights of others to the aid in your power to give them. What if they don’t know the resource of finances, life experiences, testimonies, spiritual gifts you have, then are you off the hook to stop for them? They will never know, you may say. But God will. And you will. Good luck finding happiness in the night with a life lived that way. Good luck. Luck is all you can hope for if you waste your grace like that.

Im all for fighting for the rights of the poor. But that is far different than Americans fighting for their rights to bear arms, speak their minds, or not live among a people who want to mutilate their bodies in gender disphoria and other heartbreaking actions against their holy humanity and their Holy God. How about we offer our lives for them? How would angered love acting out in compassion look towards a world that “does not know what they are doing”? That comes from Jesus’ statement on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” I take that as a statement of fact upon all humanity. Jesus, the Greatest High Priest that ever was, who IS, and the only one who forever will be said one prayer of reconciliation during His perfect offering and sacrifice of Himself to God for the sins of all peoples, His only prayer was, “Forgive them( have mercy on them), because they don’t know what they are doing.” (my emphasis added)

Many martyrs prayed similar prayers of forgiving their murderers with their dying breaths. But today what do we have? We have men fighting for justice, neglecting mercy, and walking far from humility before God and others. American pride has blinded us. Our sin has blinded us. Our gods have blinded us, just as they are blind too.

When was the last time you looked into the face of a shining saint? I can remember one particular woman, a little tiny frame of a person. Lying on an emergency room stretcher as she looked up into my eyes as I pushed her to her room within the hospital. She was glowing with a spiritual light and radiance that was visible to the naked eye. And her words were like morsels of bread dipped in honey. They were the smoothest and most beautiful I’ve ever heard. She said something like this, “Oh the beautiful challenges my Lord has delivered me through one by one. What a privilege it has been to bear all He has sent me. All He has called me through. I have faced challenge after challenge with my Lord and always have overcome.” These were not her specific words, they were much more simple. But this was her message. “Jesus set me free! And I am free!”

Do I have a right to be loved? No.

Do I have a right to be treated well? No.

Do you have a right to pleasure? No.

Do I have a right to pursue happiness? No.

Do I have a right to get married? No.

Do I have a right to do whatever I want? No.

Of course in free will you can do whatever you want. But God does not owe to you the resources to achieve anything. God does not owe you love. God does not owe you anything. He is free in regard to obligations to us.

But here is the good news. God is Love. And Love loves at all times. And love moves when what it loves is far away. Love moves toward its loved. So God moves toward us. God has pursued lovers. His passionate love found an object of His desire, me. And He stopped at nothing to have me. The sacrifice of anything and everything for my love. To win me. Convince me. Woo me. Have me. The love affair that is my God and I. It is violent in its pursuit. Wrecking all who stand in its path. Jealous in its rejection or substitution. He will have no one and no thing between she and himself. All will be destroyed in His path.

He has a right to me. Whatever he wants is His. God has the right to call me. To send me. To love me. To hold me. God has a right to sacrifice my life on the altar of others lives. What if God could have more lovers through my sacrifice? What if we can bear in our bodies, hearts, and mind the suffering of the Lord Jesus, and become partakers of the fellowship of His suffering so others may be saved?

If God be your passion, no your rights, and God will be yours in full.

Abide in Love, and you’ll abide in God.