Surrender

Surrender: To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand.

What does it mean to surrender to God? It means that we cease from our ways and who we are and we give over control to God. You often will see people in the more charismatic churches lifting their hands in worship as a sign or symbol of surrender. This is them trying to show God or tell him that they surrender or submit to him.

When we surrender to God we lay down our life and we take up his life, his ways, and his promises. We no longer live but now Christ lives in us. The Bible says I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

A lot of the times we will surrender at church or surrender in a tough time and when we leave or things get better we put his life down and pick ours back up as well as all of the striving and hell that comes with it. God calls us to no longer toil or fight but to rest in him to trust him to now live in him. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Hebrews 4:9-11

That’s so powerful to die to ourselves and die to our fleshly ways because when we do this we now activate our blessing activate our lives. When we do this, we can now begin to truly live. When we surrender we take the power out of the enemies’ hands and place it in God’s. When we lay down our lives we can truly begin to live because that great exchange between us and God happens. Haven’t you ever just been so tired of trying to make something work or trying to plan and contrive and manipulate a situation to get an outcome or to hide your nakedness as Adam did in the garden or our brokenness? When all along God has been calling us to surrender to him so he can come in and heal us and make us whole. If we just trust God he covers us in all things and he allows us the time and the ability to be made whole in him. The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. Sin can simply be unbelief or doubt.

We have to be willing to lay it all down not in a God doesn’t want us to be happy or have any joy kind of way. Some people portray God as all sacrifice and no gain. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, it’s hard to just stop to just give over control. We think we have to have our hands in everything for things to work out or to be safe or whatever lie the enemy tells us. That’s just not true. Control is an illusion. We don’t have any but God has it all. We must recognize he is God. He is Alpha and Omega, he is the beginning and he is the end. We can do nothing without him and we can hide nothing from him. For me surrender was hard because I was always worried about what people think of me and what would they think if I wasn’t all put together or if I would look weak or less holy or less godly. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. For some surrender is hard because they’ve never depended on anyone else and giving over control seems scary. None of these things matter they are just tricks to keep us from getting deliverance and to keep us from getting closer to God.

However, there is a peace that comes when we surrender there is joy in surrender in resting in God, and in resting from our works. It was so exhausting to worry like I used to do but I couldn’t control it. It was a habit for me until I began to claim God’s word over my life and it began to spring up in me like a well. That living water began to wash over me and it began to touch every part of my life that water began to fill the brokenness and wash away what was unclean and transform me. God’s way and his word became my new habit. My second nature was no longer to worry but to trust. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14

It can seem daunting as I always say to read a thing like this and think okay but how do I do it? Just start talking to him. Every day start to tell him I surrender to your plan God help me to know you more. Help me to know your ways. Relationship with Jesus is free and simple just talk to him and he will reveal himself. Make time for him it may just be reading something like this every day or listening to a song or reading a verse but gradually it will grow into a relationship. I pray you are blessed and I pray you see God in your circumstances this week.