7 Life Decisions for Spiritual Powerਨਮੂਨਾ

Give up your rights

Are we willing to give up our rights if it would advance the kingdom of God and bring glory to God?

When we study the life of Jesus, we see how He gave up His rights to reach people with the gospel, honour His Father, and show love to others.

As an itinerant preacher, Jesus never demanded that He sleep in the best B&B guest house. After all, He was the Son of God and deserved the best.

Jesus never retaliated when the religious leaders tried to kill Him, mock Him, and prove Him wrong. He could have asked His Father to rain down fire on them, but He didn’t. He refrained from defending His right to be respected.

Too often, as followers of Jesus, we protect ourselves from harm, humiliation, rejection, and vilification. We feel we have rights and that we need to protect them. Often, we are unaware of how these rights are actively shaping our lives.

Here are a few of them: our right to be treated with respect, acceptance, and recognition; our right to specific pleasures, comfort, and privileges; our right to be angry and to feel offended by what others have done to us; our right to pursue our ambitions and dreams; our right to be acknowledged or to receive credit for our accomplishments.

What are the benefits of giving up our rights? Firstly, it makes it difficult for sin to take hold of our lives. Secondly, when we stop fighting for our rights, we will cease to seek honour for ourselves. Thirdly, we will grow in humility, which will enable us to yield to God and eagerly do His will, rather than our own. Finally, we will only act and speak when the Spirit prompts us to do so.

All of this is a process. We cannot expect instant results, as this is something that grows within us over time. We are still human, and the spirit of the world resists the Spirit of God.

"Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh" (Romans 13:14; NIV).

If we do not deal with them, our “rights” will become idols in our lives.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honour” (James 4:10; NLT).