If you surrender your life to the Lord, expect to be challenged. This is a given, for your desires will often be in conflict with the will of the Lord. Also, because His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9), it is clear that His commands will not seem right to you upfront. They could even seem contrary to the very nature of God just as Peter thought when God told him to eat “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air” in a vision he had as that appeared to be against the commandment of God to eat unclean animals he had followed all his life (see Acts 10). A life of surrender means one must be okay with change, okay with life not going according to plans, okay with setbacks, okay with disappointment, okay with living without being in control. This is not new information to us believers but in reality, our actions often show that we need this understanding again and again and again for we never seem to grasp it. We are often taken by surprise, disappointment, anger, and many similar attitudes when things don’t go our way, but we shouldn’t when we know this is to be expected. Total surrender means following, not participating. Your opinion is not needed in total surrender, just your obedience. In today’s post, let me remind us once more about the importance of total surrender.
I have written a lot on the subject of surrender or dying to the flesh, but it is a topic that keeps coming in my bible reading again and again hence another post. I believe we need to be taught on the subject extensively because it is a constant challenge for us “who are prone to wander and prone to leave the God we love”. Not to mention the fact that we love to have what we want, we love to have our way. Every great man or woman that the Lord used in the bible has surrendered to Him. Whether it is Mary the mother of Jesus, or Hannah the mother of Samuel, or Abraham the father of faith, or the disciples, all these men and women left their will and desires at the foot of the cross. Something that I have come to understand is that surrendering your will does not mean you will not be hurt, it does not mean, the situation will not be painful, but it means that amidst the pain, the hurt, the confusion, the anxiety and more you keep pushing through, you keep obeying and doing the uncomfortable thing. I often believed “dying to self” meant not feeling anything anymore, almost like being numb like a sacrifice is (because it is dead). However, since we are living sacrifices, it is unreasonable to not expect a living sacrifice to have feelings. We will in fact have feelings, but we are called to not act on them and to continue in our obedience. No wonder we need the grace of God to do it! Let’s be honest, if it wasn’t for the grace of God strengthening us and giving us all that we need to endure, we wouldn’t be able to do so. In the spirit of thanksgiving, I believe it is proper for us to just be thankful to the Lord for the work He does in our lives, keeping us steady on the path of righteousness, sometimes against our will. He is a faithful God, a faithful friend and a loving Father. We would not have been able to do much without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, guiding us, revealing to us the mind of God, teaching us, and convicting us of our sins. What a privilege we have in Christ to host the very Spirit of God in us! Thank you Jesus for such a beautiful gift.
Since it is established that we will not always understand the ways of God, it should go without saying that we should be constantly praying to God for understanding and revelation to know His will as we read the scriptures. Once we have accepted the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross, the fact that he died for our sins and gave us life eternal, we need to recognize that the wisdom of God is above our own wisdom and He will do with us as He pleases. Moreover, we should know that we are finite and we now serve an infinite God who has laid a plan that is different or often times in direct opposition with what we have in mind. This is what Peter did, this is what Paul did, this is what Stephen did and all other disciples of Christ and this is what we too, followers of Christ in the twenty first century should do as well. In a bible study this morning, we read the story of Joshua where he goes and fights against a conglomerate of kings that have joined forces against the Gibeonites (a people group belonging to a nation the Israelites would conquer). Because of Joshua’s covenant with the Gibeonites, he found himself obliged to go and avenge them when the conglomerate of kings gathered to fight them. In this story, God tells Joshua: “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you” (Joshua 10:8). What I find fascinating is that the promise is given to Joshua, yet he still engages in the battle. The difference is that Joshua goes into battle from a position of victory. He goes into the battle knowing for sure that he will not be defeated, and he fights with all his might. As God would have it, Joshua wins the battle against that coalition of five kings with the Lord’s help. The power of God was demonstrated vividly in that battle as we see the sun and the moon submitting to the command of Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14). Moreover, we see God himself killing the enemies’ army by sending out large stones from heaven in their camp (Joshua 10:11). By submitting to the Lord and by obeying his command to not fear his enemies, Joshua saw the great salvation the Lord orchestrated on his behalf. Without his surrendering and total dependence on God’s word, Joshua would not have obtained that victory or should I say manifested that victory. God had nothing to gain really from this victory, without this victory, His name would have still remained great, it was Joshua and the nation of Israel that had everything to gain from this victory. This goes to show that it is for our own good that the Lord demands total surrender of us. He wants to change us and mold us into His image. I think if we had a glimpse of what the Lord wants to do with us, we would be quick to submit to Him.
Unfortunately, we don’t spend much of our time thinking about how great God is; we don’t spend much of our time meditating on His character like His goodness, His power, His wisdom and so we don’t think surrendering is a good thing. This is precisely the reason Paul exhorts us to set our minds on things above and the way to do that is by letting the word of God dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16). This shows itself in the way we teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts; as we do everything whether in word or deed in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to the Father through him; as we submit to our husbands, as we love our wives, as we obey our parents, as we provoke not our children, and the list goes on. Indeed, the more we let the word of God dwell in us richly, the better it will be for everyone around us, the society and the world at large. We are light in this world, we are salt on this earth and our mission is to shine and to add taste to this dark and tasteless world. I pray we do not get too consumed by ourselves that we forget the reason for our being, Christ’s exaltation. Father, help us to see the goodness that resides in surrender. May we embrace it unwaveringly. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 