Surrendering Your Life to God (Part 1 of 2): The Struggle for Control

Sunday, May 2, 2010

“All to Jesus I surrender; All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all;  All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”  Beloved Hymn by Winfield S. Weeden

We are at war.  At the very moment we were conceived, we were at war with God. We had conflicting goals, want, desires, strategies, and loyalties that were contrary to God’s will for our lives.  Then the message from God was sent to our hearts: There can be no peace until you’re willing to accept my terms–unconditional surrender.  We then came to realize that surrender was our best and only option, so we agreed to accept His terms. We waved the white flag; we gave our lives to the One who gave His life for us on the cross–the One who demands and deserves our wholehearted allegiance and devotion.  God then gave us a new heart; a heart to love Him and to obey and follow Him as our Captain and Lord. This is the beginning point of surrender–what the Bible calls being “born again.”  The act of surrender does not save us by any means; it is Christ’s work on the cross, His sacrifice, that is our means of salvation. But sadly, today more than ever we succumbed to the idea that whoever prays the salvation prayer and says the “magic words”  that we’re saved. The Bible does not recognize such a profession as genuine.

The terms of our surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ are nonnegotiable and unconditional. What is required of us to surrender? Simply–everything. Jesus warned “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of the Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)  As every new believer soon discovers, the initial point of surrender does not end with asking Jesus into our heart and accepting Him as our Lord and Savior–it’s just the starting point.  Most often we fail to recognize what the implications of full surrender really mean.  Why is full surrender so difficult? Let’s look at a few reasons why we’re so unwilling to give ourselves completely and wholeheartedly to God:

One major challenge of complete surrender to Christ is we don’t know what lies ahead in our futures. We want to know the details. We want to see all the fine print so we can read over it, think about it, and then decide whether we want to sign on the dotted line. Signing on the dotted line is very risky…What will this cost me? Where will God expect me to go? What will He ask me to do? In the whole scheme of things, we cannot lose , because God is in control and He can be trusted. If we’re willing to let Him He will fill in the details of our lives with incredible wisdom, a sovereign plan, that’s written in the ink of His covenant of faithfulness and love.

We don’t like the word sacrifice. In fact, we sometimes cringe at the word; wanting nothing to do with it. The Bible provide a number of word pictures that help us understand what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. One of the biggest images is a burnt offering. Often offered as a sin or guilt offering, burnt offerings were intended to express the worshiper’s total dedication to the Lord. It was a picture of complete surrender to Him. We as believers are called to be living sacrifices: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1) Our bodies represent all that we are, all that we have, and all that we do. Notice we are to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice–we are to go on living in our bodies, recognizing we are not our own and that we belong to God. God may be asking you give money to a certain cause, call someone in need of encouragement, give your time to serve your church, give up going on a vacation to financially help a family in need; whatever it may be remember that whatever God ask us is never pointless. We can be assured that every sacrifice made serves God’s higher, eternal purposes for our lives and for the furthering of His kingdom.

The final main reason we’re afraid of surrendering our lives completely to God is fear.  Our natural tendency is to hold on tightly to the things we think we can’t live without. We’re afraid that if we surrender everything to God–our health, possessions, relationships, reputation, career, rights, and future–He might take us on it! Visions of God stripping away all the things we love and enjoy, or being sent to a third world country flood our thoughts. These fears fall into four main categories:

1) Provision–Will I have everything I need?  The Bible tells us to be content with what we have and not worry about how our future needs will be met. ^“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said  ”Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) Based on this promise instead of complaining or worrying we simply and confidently ask Him to provide for us. If we don’t, we are susceptible to greed, stealing, lying, coveting, or cheating. 

2) Pleasure–Will I be happy? It is unavoidable that we will experience pain and suffering. Suffering is an tool that God used to mold and sanctify those He loves. Despite this, God also created us to experience intense pleasure and joy. The problem lies in the fact that we look outside of God for pleasure and instead turn to people and things. We will never truly be satisfied with less than Him. “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)  The joy God offers is a breathtaking foretaste of heaven’s eternal pleasures. If we are unwilling to trust God with our happiness we instead turn to the world’s temporary pleasures and become dominated by overeating, sexual promiscuity, pornography, drugs, drunkenness, or gambling.  

3) Protection–Will I and my loved ones be safe? We live in a dangerous, menacing world. Everywhere we turn there’s a risk of getting hurt either physically or emotionally. God doesn’t promise that we will never face danger, but those who take refuge in Him are placed under His protection. He is our refuge, fortress, shelter, and deliverer. “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” (Psalm 91:4) If we fail to trust God with His protection, we will be overwhelmed with fearfulness, worry, mistrust in people, fear of intimacy, hatred, prejudice, or become paranoid. 

4) Personal relationships–Will my relational needs be met?  The key to rich, engaging, love relationships is an intimate relationship with God. God has promised us that He will never leave us or forsake us and be with use not matter where we go or what we do. He is everything we need.  When we believe this we can say confidently: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.” (Psalm 73:25) If God is not valued as our primary relationship, we live in fear of losing human relationships and things such as lust, unforgiveness, manipulation, dishonesty,  and jealousy will overtake us.

It is truly awe-inspiring and refreshing to see a human being fully surrendered to the will of God because it is so rare. The greatest example of this is found in the life Jesus lived. He willingly gave Himself up to become a human being and walk among us.  He lived an obedient life towards His earthly parents, resisted giving control over to Satan in the wilderness, and never acknowledged anyone but God as the One in control. Not once did He resist the will of the Father. There was never a power struggle for control–just complete, glad surrender. Jesus even surrendered His life willingly so we could inherit eternal life. ”But made himself nothing, taking the very natureof a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-7) If the Son of God was willing to surrender His life, can anything God calls us to do, be too great a cost to sacrifice for Him?

In conclusion, we need to ask ourselves this: What would surrendering to God’s control look like for me? What areas are you holding back from Him? What fears or doubts are keeping you from living a complete, surrendered life to Him on a daily basis? The areas and issues that we could be holding back could be endless: Possessions, spending habits, our health, eating habits, our time, addictive habits, our comforts, our thoughts, the words you speak, or your future. We rarely ask when difficult and hard circumstances come up: “What does God want me to do? What does His Word say about this?” To live a fully surrendered life to God is to say “Yes” to God concerning: His choices for our life, difficult circumstances that come your way, His plans and purposes, His disciplines, and control over our body, time, relationships, our future–our everything. 

One last amazing example of complete surrender is the life of Eric Liddell. At the 1924 Paris Olympics, he dropped out of his best event, the 100 yard dash, because it was held on a Sunday. He instead preached a sermon at a nearby church. So instead of the 100 yard dash he entered himself into the 400 yard dash, which we had not trained for. He ran the race and finished five yards ahead of the nearest competitor, thus setting a new world record and winning a gold medal. From there Eric served as a missionary in China ministered to fellow prisoners in a Japanese concentration camp. While in camp, he suffered a brain tumor that left him partially paralyzed. On the day he died in a hospital bed struggling to breathe and going into a convulsion his last words to His nurse was: “Annie, it’s complete surrender.” May our lives reflect these words as we raise the white flag, bow our knees, and proclaim complete surrender over to Jesus Christ. Only then will we experience a life of peace, happiness, contentment, and joy that only God can give us. Jesus, I surrender all!

**Next week I’ll conclude the short two-week series on surrender by looking at how we can apply complete surrender into our lives and give more examples of what a life of complete surrender to God looks like. Then we’ll begin looking at our identity in Christ and who we are. Stay tuned for the launch of the SPECIAL Ministry and first section of the Manual set to be up within the next few weeks. Also the next Profile, on Francis Chan, will be posted later on this week. God Bless **

Sources: 

Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Brokenness Surrender Holiness: A Revive Our Hearts Trilogy. Moody Publishers: Chicago, IL, 2008.