Jesus Directed Life (JDL) - Introduction

With the Lord Begin Your Task
(From Lutheran Worship, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO, ©1982)

With the Lord begin your task;
Jesus will direct it.
For his aid and counsel ask;
Jesus will perfect it.
Ev’ry morn with Jesus rise,
And when day is ended,
In his name then close your eyes;
Be to him commended.

Let each day begin with prayer,
Praise, and adoration.
On the Lord cast ev’ry care;
He is your salvation.
Morning, evening, and at night
Jesus will be near you,
Save you from the tempter’s might,
With his presence cheer you.

With your Savior at your side,
Foes need not alarm you;
In his promises confide,
And no ill can harm you.
All your trust and hope repose
In the mighty master,
Who in wisdom truly knows
How to stem disaster.

If your task be thus begun
With the Savior’s blessing,
Safely then your course will run,
Toward the promise pressing.
Good will follow ev’rywhere
While you here must wander;
You at last the joy will share
In the mansions yonder.

The concept for this project came at a pastors’ conference (Winkel as they are called). We were talking about the hymn, With the Lord Begin Thy Task, when one of the pastors commented that the hymn does not encourage us to have a “purpose-driven life” but a Jesus-directed life. And so this idea began.

In the hymn, we are encouraged to being all our tasks with the Lord. We are to seek His aid and counsel beginning in the morning so that by the end of the day, we might again commend ourselves to Him in sleep. Each day we begin with prayer and praise and adoration. We are to cast all our cares on our Lord because He is our Savior. And all day, morning, evening and at night we know that Jesus is near us, even with us and will keep us from Satan’s plans. With Jesus by our side we need fear nothing, because nothing can harm us. And so, with our tasks, with our day begun with Jesus and His blessings, we will run the course of our life toward the promise of His gift of eternal life in heaven. And finally, when our day is over we will join Him and live with Him in heaven for eternity. How much better can we do than to be focused completely our whole life through on Jesus, the Lord!

In the process of writing this work, the idea came to mind, how would one advertise this work, and I think the following would suffice. An announcer would say, “Are you tired? Are you tired of following a god who needs you to do for him? Are you tired of having to do everything for your god, because he is not able to do anything on his own? Then do I have great news for you. Our God is not a god who needs anything from us, as if we would have anything of value to Him. As a matter of fact, our God is the one who gives everything to us. That’s right; our God is a Creator God. But that is not all; not only does our God give everything to us, He requires nothing from us. And to top it off, He even gives to us our response to Him.”

The following, then, is presented as a work of encouragement, not to follow a god who is impotent, blind, and helpless, but to follow a God who is all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-everything. The following is presented as an encouragement to worship a God who needs nothing and expects nothing from us, His creatures. Rather He is a God who gives all things to us, all that we need, and even more than we might want or desire.

It is only as we recognize our helplessness and our Lord’s grace that we can begin to fathom what a great God we do have. By our nature we are conceived and born in sin. We are spiritually blind, spiritually dead and enemies of God. We daily sin much and are in need of forgiveness. Left to our own devices we would fail and fail miserably. And we might add that what God demands is perfection (Matthew 5:48). It is only by God’s grace and His giving that we are blessed as we are. And so we rejoice that God gives. God gives, and we are given to. God gives despite our undeserving nature. God gives all His good gifts and blessings. God gives faith. God gives forgiveness of sins. God gives strengthening of faith. God gives life, abundant life in this world and life in the world to come, even eternal life. God gives, and we are given to.

Think About
Listen to how you speak and how others speak. Are you running the show, or do you think you are running the show, or is God running the show? We get it right when God is running the show.

Prayer
Lord, be with me as You begin this task of getting me out of the driver’s seat of my life and Your getting in. Forgive me as I fail, lift me up, and help me always to do better as You live in me. Help me, Lord, to understand Your grace. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.