Choose Your Word! A New Year’s Practice for a Life of SurrenderSample

After choosing our words, how do we move toward living them? My solution this year is a two-tier template for life and ministry application.

Yours is an acknowledgment of the Lord—a declaration.

From 1 Chronicles 29, I notice that David admits Lord Yahweh’s importance in personal and national life. He accepts the truth of the Lord’s legitimacy and worth for everyone. I also sense that he appreciates the One who has supported and nurtured him and his people. Acknowledgment here is not mere greeting; it is deep gratitude.

1 Chronicles 29:11 also begins with the “who.” Yours declares a certain and actual “who” as the basis and anchor of all being. God is the first in chronology (eternal existence before all other reality) and, by implication, the source and means of all knowledge and wisdom: Yours, Lord!

Much like an author honorably and correctly acknowledges indebtedness to sources, editors, and helpers, Yours forces me beyond a courtesy nod to the Lord. Yours declares reflective acknowledgment of the One valued greater than any competition. Yours comes with an unmatched list of superlatives without exaggeration as the author runs out of space, time, truth, and emotion to fully describe the One to whom he is indebted.

Recently I’ve needed the services of a notary public. A notary public plays an impartial service role to ensure the integrity of documentation and the identity of the signer. The notary requests my verbalization and countersigns my willingness to sign that acknowledgment. In other words, he acknowledges my acknowledgment! In my verse for the year, David similarly acknowledges the integrity and identity of his signer—the Lord God Himself. In this case, David is willing to countersign that acknowledgment. It’s a human acknowledgment of divine acknowledgment of deity Himself.