Shipwrecked – Making Jesus the One ThingSample

Burn the Boats!

In 1519, the Spanish conquistador, Captain Hernán Cortés, landed in Veracruz Mexico to begin his great conquest of the new world. He reportedly ordered his men to burn the ships in which they arrived in order to remove any option of return from the minds of his men. 

We too must settle in our hearts and minds that there is no plan B. We must burn our plan B. Jesus is our plan A, B and C. He is our provider and our highest pleasure. He is our comforter and our healer. That does not mean that we quit our jobs, stay away from the movies and never go to a doctor. But it may mean that we are less focused on amassing wealth and more on giving it away. It’s an issue of the heart. We must determine that we are willing to lose it all, all our wealth, all our prestige, all our reputation, even all our family, for the exceeding worth of Christ our hope of glory! Often, we simply take our same idols and dress them in church clothes. We still want prestige, so we run after titles and positions in the church – apostle, reverend, pastor… We still want to be rich, so we send money to Israel and tithe and ‘sow a seed’ hoping to earn material blessings in exchange. Christ has yet to become the object of our heart’s desire. We are just using the name of Christ to get what we really want.

Sometimes our ‘boats’ are not bad things. They are good things that are simply of no use to us in our new life. A boat is just not designed for land transportation. Our ‘boats’ could be our denomination, doctrinal persuasion, bible knowledge, church attendance, fancy prayers or any other religious thing that we might take pride in. Jesus is not impressed by how much scripture we memorize or which denomination we belong to.

The apostle Paul understood this.  When He came to know Christ, he threw away everything that he had relied on before and counted it all as rubbish. His Jewishness, his extensive knowledge of the law, everything went into the fire. Paul treasured Christ above all and wanted to leave no room for going back to a second-rate life.

Like Paul, let us count all that was precious to us before as rubbish in the surpassing glorious light of Christ! Let us burn our boats! 

Points to pray/journal:

• Lord Jesus, are You the only object of my affections or is there something my heart wants more?

• Lord are there any areas in my life where I am depending on myself or others instead of depending wholly on You?

Declarations:

• I lay everything at Your feet Lord! Take my heart and make it burn for You only!

• Lord, You are the One who has called me and You are the One who keeps me!