Matthew 17:20
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as
small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here
to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
In this verse, there is an implied formula: “I am willing to do what I am not able to do.” Just like Jesus, we can’t be absolutely perfect as He is. However, the perfection that God desires for each of us must be attainable. Humanly speaking, it is impossible, but we must be willing. We surrender our lives, for what is impossible for man is not impossible for God. We must be willing first. God said in Luke 14, “Your enemy has twenty thousand soldiers, you only have ten thousand. You cannot win. Give the ten thousand first, and I will add the rest.” Impossible for man, not impossible for God. We must be willing to do what we cannot do: to become perfect like the Lord Jesus, to live without spot and without blemish. It is impossible — yet we must be willing. If we are eager and surrender ourselves to this, then God will add His part, for He has a portion in it.
However, if we ourselves are not willing, then it will never happen. Leave the world as proof of our love for Him, and God will work in all things for the good of those who love Him. What is the standard of our love? To love with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. To love with all our hearts, even though we are still “fleshly.” With all our mind we serve the law of God, even though we still have a sinful nature. We can still love Him even though God is invisible. Are we brave enough? That is the issue. It depends on us.
Whether we trade in the marketplace or preach from the pulpit, it means nothing if our heart’s motivation is wrong. What matters is the motivation of our hearts. Therefore, we must dare to leave the world first; only then can our inner being be shaped by God, so that every movement, feeling, and action pleases Him. That is what is right. It is not about becoming a pastor or an activist — those are according to each person’s calling. Even if we become an app-based transportation driver, that too is honorable. What matters is the motivation of our life: leave the world. How we fulfill it takes time — but the commitment must be there. If we commit when we do wrong, guilt will be powerful. We will not be able to endure living in sin. The pleasures of the world will fade day by day. We can still enjoy traveling, eating with family and friends — God created those things to be enjoyed — but without being attached to them.
God does not gradually own us. He has already paid in full. The process of fulfilling life as belonging to God is maturity, but commitment does not go through a process. The problem is, we used to think that commitment is a process: as long as we do not betray God, we gradually surrender our lives little by little, until eventually everything is surrendered. That is wrong. It must not be so. Commitment must be 100% from the start.
In fact, the spiritual life shows that we have never gradually come to belong to God. Yet God has already purchased us; therefore, we must commit to fully belonging to Him. It turns out that because we felt we could do it gradually, we opened our lives to worldly desires — and as a result, we became owned by the world. In our hearts, we cry out: Why are we not growing significantly as children of God? Why are we not reaching the holiness that God desires?
The fact is, many negative feelings still dominate us — pride, the desire to be valued, being easily offended, being disappointed, being unable to accept others, being quick to burst into anger, and so on. In our flesh, there are still desires that sometimes press to be satisfied. We must be honest: these conditions show that we have not yet dared to commit. Now we learn to leave the world. We are not made happy by anyone except God. This kind of principle must be built.