Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

by Lisa Whittle

One of the biggest misconceptions about service is that if we aren’t serving where we’ve always been or where we prefer, we aren’t in the right place.

How badly we need to get out of the way and understand God’s plans to use us are, at the core, never about us. They are about Him and sovereign intricacies we cannot understand.

God’s plan for me was to be His servant, and though the location and situation would look different, the mission remained the same.

If you hang on to where He used you before, you say no to the goodness of what lies ahead.

You simply find a new way to serve that works now, and you do it with all your heart.

Let God move you where He wants to use you now. If you hang on to where He used you before, you say no to the goodness of what lies ahead.

remember that the eyes of God are on you—noticing what you are doing for Him, watching the obscure moments that get no one’s applause or attention. It’s natural to want the accolades now. It’s human to want the spotlight. But giving our life away in service is what actually makes our lives better.

But there’s a difference between creatively presenting Jesus to reach the world and cleverly presenting Jesus to attract people to our talents. God has to be our compass on that, but don’t think people won’t sense the difference between the two. Jesus is what will save this world. He wants to use us, but He can do that without our creative input.

Our casual attitude toward the gospel is what makes radical life change seem like it needs a makeover. I can’t express something so big on paper, but all I can say is remembering the idea of having a death sentence commuted to life should squelch any need to come up with something more.

Hype is more than a bad idea—it is a dangerous idea for two good reasons, if none else: 1. Its takeover influence leads us to give up ownership of our thoughts, convictions, and free will.

2. Its flash-and-bang appeal diminishes the importance of a steady, enduring gospel.

A steady life is not about circumstance. It is about spiritual calibration—where Jesus balances you even in the midst of changing times and unexpected things.

how do you tangibly choose steady over hype in your everyday life? I believe it develops inside you as a result of two things: immediate obedience and long obedience.

Immediate obedience is the instant yes to Jesus, no matter what. Long obedience is the enduring yes to Jesus, no matter what.

The lack of qualification in verse 37 has me convicted by the confidence I have in my fleshly resistance. Should Jesus simply show up in the area and someone tell me so, would I hop over and start tagging along behind Him? I have trust issues, so the verdict is unclear. But it doesn’t look good.

“It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. . . . There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”3

the primary problem of Jesus followers: we do not agree to stick with Jesus through His uncomfortable process.

Turns out, hiding is the cruelest of all farces because it offers a friendship that doesn’t exist. You’ve developed an armor of dust in the hidden place. It’s thick and protective.

Living in denial of truth and the reality of pain will temporarily feel like the right, best move. But please remember what it feels like to be haunted by your secrets.

One of the best things that honesty brings is a breakup with the person you’ve become but never truly wanted to be.

Any of us who have become less than who God created us to be are not really who we are.

We spend more time figuring out how to hide our truth than we do how to heal it. The hiding may buy us some time from the momentary pain the truth brings, but it does a crazy amount of more damage.

Pastor Voddie Baucham said this: “We’re producing passionate people with empty heads who love the Jesus they don’t know very well.”

At the end of the day, Jesus isn’t interested in what we know. He’s interested in how we live.

A book by the beach to learn more about Jesus is far sweeter than Him doing a messy, transformative work inside us that requires action.

transformative heart work can be done through books, certainly, but God doesn’t need them to produce in us life change.

Choosing a pursuit of wisdom, no matter how knowledgeable we are about Scripture or God or spiritual matters, is the best way to ensure we will walk the paths God intends rather than veering onto roads that weren’t meant for us.

If we know what the Word says about how to show Jesus to other people but opt not to because we are too comfortable in a lazy faith, the knowledge won’t help bring a single soul to Christ.

Wisdom takes the Bible seriously. It believes what Jesus says will work and attempts rather than resists. It does not look for ways to sit this one out—it is ready, always, to live what it knows.

We don’t self-govern; we self-regulate, with the Lord being the One who governs our life.

Maybe the beginning of wisdom for each of us is to ask ourselves this question, even now: Who and what influences me the most? If the answer is anything other than Jesus and the Word, we are face-to-face with something in dire need of adjustment.

It is a false idea that commitment is more than a choice. If we wait for a feeling, we will likely wait too long or jump into something too soon. There’s a reason Moses says in Deuteronomy 30 that choosing life is choosing to love, obey. and commit to God. There’s no mention of waiting until it feels right or we are in the spiritual mood.

If we are offended by the thought that mood could be determining the depth of our spiritual life, maybe it is because it feels painfully true. • spend time in the Word versus spend time on our phone, • seek God or seek advice from a friend when we have an issue, • react instead of being disciplined enough to pause, or • sit back and soak in spiritual things rather than get out and serve

Not having to stick to anything if we don’t feel like it leaves us never knowing the joy of finishing well and the strength of doing hard things. We live in a half-done society because when people are only halfway in, they tend to bail on things that don’t feel good.

We have nothing to do with God’s gift of salvation and everything to do with the acceptance of it and the ongoing process of growing our faith. And yet in that there is choice and free will. The promise of eternity does not waver based on our poor decisions after salvation, but the keeping of our minds, bodies, and souls is a choice-by-choice partnership with Christ. My pastor, Jay Stewart, recently spoke something powerful and profound over us one Sunday that crystallizes this point: “What’s better—to be able to say, ‘I am forgiven and saved’ or ‘I have become like Christ?’” We can get technical about this and argue about how salvation is the most important thing, and on the core premise, I will agree. Nothing matters if we don’t first choose to follow Christ. But to rest on our status of heaven-bound rather than pursue holiness and sanctification (the process of becoming like Christ) exposes our desire for a lazy faith. God’s plan is not for us to accept salvation and sit with it. It is for us to share its miracle with the world.

Commitment is a rare thing, so when we choose it, we should expect to seem rare. In the faith sense it’s the Luke 9:23 command played out: the denial of self to take up our individual crosses and follow Jesus. Perhaps that is why we find it so precious when we see someone who is truly committed, in spite of their feelings or circumstances.

Commitment over mood isn’t a slogan or a trite cliché. It’s a hard-fought death to self. It’s seeing the feelings for the idols that they are in our lives, recognizing the times that we’ve put them over the call of the gospel, and then making the decision to choose Jesus over everything. Possible, while purposeful.

We can be great church attenders, but we will never be powerful kingdom influencers if we are ruled by our moods. We’ll have no consistency in our relationship with Him if we’re swayed by every fleeting feeling.

The true success of a person is not in whether she can make her life work; it’s in whether she can die to her life enough for Jesus to work in her. When hard times come, how much we’ve practiced this principle will show.

Real over pretty: When we want to look perfect, we fight to be ourselves. Love over judgment: When we feel judgmental, we choose love. Holiness over freedom: When we could say yes but it won’t make us more like Jesus, we say no instead. Service over spotlight: When we want attention, we lift up someone else. Steady over hype: When the world tries to influence us, we continually go to the Word. Honesty over hiding: When we want to lie, we out the secret to take away its power. Wisdom over knowledge: When we are tempted to rely on books or outside inspiration to be our best teacher, we ask God to make us wise instead. Commitment over mood: When we want to run, we stay.

And I think about this life—how it rusts. How it collects dusts. How people steal from us. How when we are gone, there’s nothing here we miss, and our stuff is relegated to trash bins and auctions. How so much in our lives is precious yet how much of it is rubble and ash. But in both God remains. How it’s all His. How we’re all His. Jesus over everything. From Genesis 1 until the end.