What does it mean to be all
in? In the 2014 Futball (soccer) World
Cup games in Brazil, Adidas's marketing slogan is “All in or nothing.” Adidas spent millions on its World Cup
advertising around that slogan. In the
same month of June (2014) “All In” was spelled out in bold letters on the cover
of The Salvation Army’s USA national magazine, The War Cry, with a subtitle “Why settle for less than the Spirit’s
full measure?” All In was the same words, but with different meaning. It was their way of
announcing the lead article on God’s greatest desire for humanity, holiness and
intimacy with Him. What does it mean to
be spiritually all in?
Recently I reread General
Frederick Coutts classic work, Call To
Holiness (1957). In the first
paragraph of the last chapter (p. 103), Coutts offers a clear, practical definition
of holiness:
Christian holiness
may be defined as the whole man redirected towards the
highest spiritual end – that is, likeness to Christ, and in this he is granted
the continual help of the Holy Spirit.
Coutts states on the page
just before (p.102) the condition or contingency that makes holiness possible with all
the possibilities that follow:
All
the wonder and glory of the life of holiness awaits the full surrender of
the forgiven heart to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
In world cup football
(soccer) every team member must be all in.
There must be a full surrender of every individual player to the
collective interests of the team. Each
player must be all in and all players must be all in with hearts completely
consecrated to the goal of winning.
When
Coutts uses the language of full surrender of the forgiven heart to the
presence and power of God’s Spirit, he is talking the same language of being
all in. Holiness is a matter of a whole
heart by faith being completely surrendered and open to God’s great desire for
humanity. His great desire is for us to
realize the highest spiritual end, likeness to Christ. As Coutts proclaims, the good news is that
God makes possible the continual help of the Holy Spirit. In others words, God is all in too. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all in
and committed to helping us to be like Christ and filled with the fullness of
God (Eph. 3:19).
So, are you all in?
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