Surrender to God; see what happens
Three
of the scariest words in the English language are surrender to God.
Come to think of it,
when they're translated, they're the scariest words in any language. The
last thing we want is to give up control.
And yet, we're often
smart enough to realize that we've messed up our own life--big time. We know
we've made major mistakes. Nothing is going right. Our life, our very existence
is miserable.
To let God take over,
though is the most frightening, distasteful solution we can think of.
Maybe it's the word
"surrender." We usually associate it with defeat, humiliation, and
losing. Our world never considers surrender a good thing.
Fortunately for us, God
is above this world, yet still intimately involved in it. Somewhere
along the way, we got the wrong notion that things happen that even God has no
control over, like hurricanes, tidal waves, or genocide. "If he's so
good," we think, "why doesn't he intervene and stop them?"
Good question, but you
can't sneak out of it that easily. We were talking about your life,
remember? About why you're resisting surrender to God.
If we're completely
honest, it's that we just don't trust him. Oh, we say we do, but when it
comes to running our life, we'd rather stay in control, even if we're doing a
lousy job of it. Some people, like drug addicts and alcoholics, turn to God
only when they figure he can't do any worse running their life than they did.
When you think about it,
it's sort of funny. Not only do we not trust God to do what's right, we think
he's incompetent as well. He couldn't possibly do things better, could
he?
We're also scared
because surrender to God requires obedience. That's a pretty offensive
idea too, isn't it? We don't like anyone telling us what to do. Like a spoiled
two year-old, we want our own way.
Or maybe we think that
if we surrender to God, he'll immediately ship us off to
One of the things I
learned in college (and learned rather painfully), is that there are many, many
people who are smarter than me. I may have been a wiz-kid in my high school,
but that was a tiny little world. There are professors, doctors, attorneys, and
computer programmers who are certifiable geniuses. Even so, I wouldn't trust
any of those people to run my life.
Compared to God, the
smartest person on earth is like an amoeba.
Got a good therapist?
God's better. Got a wise life counselor? God is wiser. Got a good mentor? God
is more experienced.
To surrender to God, you
have to accept three truths:
Don't wait until you hit
rock bottom. Be smart. The sooner you surrender to God, the sooner he can start
getting your life straightened out.
He can do it, but he
won't step in until you ask him. But if you do, you'll be amazed at what happens.
God still performs miracles today--
for people who believe in Him
Have
you given up on the belief that God still performs miracles?
It's easy to be skeptical, isn't it? We have
been disappointed so many times that we try not to expect much from God any
more.
Perhaps unconsciously, we lower our
expectations as a defense against getting hurt. Don't expect much, then you won't get hurt when nothing happens, we think.
When
Jesus performed miracles, he always looked for faith in the person who made the
request. In fact, people who had no faith in Jesus' ability to help them didn't
even bother to ask him.
Maybe you've stopped believing that God still
performs miracles because you don't want to get your hopes up again. Or maybe
you think you're not worthy of special treatment from God.
It
takes a special kind of courage to hope that God personally intervenes, and
that he will in your life.
But following Jesus Christ is an adventure,
not a nap. It's not for people who want to curl up in a safe place and pull the
blankets over their head.
The embodiment of bravery is a person who
sticks close to Jesus no matter how grim their life looks at the moment. That
kind of person has unwavering faith that God still performs miracles. They
know, deep down inside, that it's not a question of whether; it's only a
question of when.
They recognize that the miraculous happens
every day, if we train ourselves to look for it.
They don't worship a puny, ineffective God.
They worship the all-powerful, majestic God who created and controls the entire
universe. Is that your God?
However, God is a loving Father who
wants the best for you. Jesus described God's generosity this way:
"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)
Could it get any clearer than that?
God wants to perform miracles!
God
still performs miracles because he hasn't changed. He's the same God he was in
Moses' time, in Elijah's time, and in Jesus' time.
That's a very comforting, reassuring truth.
God's almighty power has not diminished one bit. His love and care for his
children--including you--hasn't
changed either.
So have hope. Times may have changed, but God
hasn't. Could anything please him more than a miraculous turnaround for one of
his own?
Keep praying/saying affirmations. Keep
hoping. Allow him to do it his
way, in his timing, and watch
what happens!
Surrender
to God - What's the Phrase Really Mean?
Surrender to God - it's a term you may have heard, but what does it mean,
exactly? Surrender is not a word often associated with positive actions. After
all, "surrender in the name of the law" usually means trouble for
someone. And we know that when one side surrenders to another in battle, it's a
sign they've given up any hope for victory.
Surrender
to God - If I Do That, What Am I Giving Up?
If we surrender to God, what are we giving up? Does it mean, as it does for the
enemy in battle, to give up on victory in our lives? Is God holding a gun to
our heads and forcing us to give Him everything we have, like a bandit or
mugger might do? To be sure, there are those who are willing to portray God in that
way, especially where self-gain is involved. But when we come to know the true
character and nature of God, we quickly discover how false that image is.
Surrender means to yield ownership, to relinquish control over what we consider
ours: our property, our time, our "rights."
When we surrender to God, we are simply acknowledging that what we
"own" actually belongs to Him. He is the giver of all good things. We
are responsible to care for what God has given us, as stewards of His property,
but by surrendering to God, we admit that He is ultimately in control of
everything, including our present circumstances. Surrendering to God helps us
to let go of whatever has been holding us back from God's best for our lives.
By surrendering to God, we let go of whatever has kept us from wanting God's
ways first.
Surrender
to God - A Choice for Adam & Eve
In the beginning, God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and gave them
everything they needed. All that was good to eat was available and attainable
for them. All, that is, except one tree - the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Enter the serpent, the one we now recognize as Satan. Sly and deceptive
in all his ways, the serpent's first move was to question the word of God, when
he suggested to Eve, "Did God really say that you couldn't eat from that
tree?" As we all know, suggesting that forbidden fruit may not be
forbidden after all is almost the same as license. Only the wise will question
the potential result of giving in to temptation.
What if Adam and Eve had been wise enough to see the deception? What if they
had recognized the choice that was being put before them, and rather than
doubting God's Word, they had chosen instead to obey God? What if they had
realized God was to be obeyed, even if His command didn't seem to make perfect
sense to them? But note that God did not say to Adam and Eve, "you can't
eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Rather, we read in
Genesis 2:16-17: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree
of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall
surely die."
Surrender to God - A Choice for All of Us
Adam and Eve were given a choice to surrender to God when He said, "you shall
not" as opposed to "you cannot." The fruit of this
tree is not something we're likely to find in the produce section of our
supermarket, but rather it represented the alternative God offered. Should Adam
and Eve trust and obey Him for a greater reward down the road, or should they
give in to the momentary desires of their hearts? Had they chosen to surrender
the longings of their hearts to God, it's possible that we may all be living
eternally on a perfect earth, right here and now. Tragically, Adam and Eve did
not choose that path. And because of that first act of disobedience, our hearts
have become more and more prone to selfishness with each generation. (Consider
the evidence presented in chapter 4 of Genesis - when Cain, the very first
human born to a woman, murdered his own brother. How quickly the corruption
occurred!)
Before you decide to blame every problem throughout history on Adam and Eve,
though, it's important to consider that we are all given the same choice they
were given. It's just that they were the first ones to blow it.
Surrender to God - Why
it's the
So, what's the point of surrendering to God? If we've
already blown it so badly, what's the point of choosing God's way now? After
all, the Bible tells us that the world we live in is lost and perishing. This
is where the good news comes in! Because God loves His creation, He hasn't cast
us from paradise forever. He continues to give us a choice. The world around us
may be suffering the results of sin, but each person -- you, I and everyone we
encounter -- still has the opportunity to choose to obey God. As long as we
have breath, we have that choice.
Surrender to God - What
are You Clinging To?
Look back for a moment at the story of Adam and Eve. If they had surrendered to
God, rather than listening to the serpent (whom we recognize today as the
devil, the angel Lucifer described in Isaiah 14, who had fallen victim to his
own pride) and their own desires, it's possible our world would not be
suffering the consequences. Clearly then, what God desires for us is far better
than any momentary gain-but we can only know that victory if we surrender our
desires, our "rights" to God.
What is it that you desire today? What "right" are you clinging to,
even though deep down inside you know you'd be better off if you gave it up? Do
you think that voice, deep down inside, could be God giving you the same choice
He gave Adam and Eve? God loved you and me so much that He willingly took on
human flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ, to choose obedience and surrender
for us. As our living example, Christ first surrendered His divinity in order
to give us a flesh and blood God we could relate to (John 3), then He surrendered
His right to be God when the devil tempted Him in the desert (Matthew 4), and
finally He surrendered His right to life itself when He took upon His flesh --
His perfect sinless body --all the penalty for every human refusal to yield.
Because of Him, all you and I need to do today is to place our faith in Him and
obey the Word of God.
Surrender to God - A
Daily Choice
Surrender to God, obey His commands for your life, and you can know the life of
abundance that He came to offer. Hold on to your rights, to what you think you
own or should have, and you may be happy with a possession or two for awhile;
you may even have some temporary relief from stress or longing. But what of the
end result? It can be hard to think that far ahead when we are tempted by a
momentary longing, but as any dieter knows, longings
for what is perishing are always momentary. If we ride them out, by choosing
obedience, we find that the desire is gradually defeated. Victory through
Christ is within our grasp, if we choose to surrender to God whatever has a
stranglehold on us. Obey Him, even if you don't really want to right now, and
discover the genuine, eternal satisfaction that can only come from surrendering
to God.
Like me, you may find that surrendering "wants" and "rights"
is difficult to do. When I want ice cream, I really want it! But as a lifelong
dieter, I also know that if I don't surrender my wants, the long term result is
something I do not desire. God has designed our world so that spiritual
principles are often mirrored in the physical, if we are willing to see them
there. If you are, and if you'll desire God's ways above your own, simply ask
Him to show you when you are being tempted by your own desires. Unlike
receiving the gift of salvation, which is ours the moment we ask Christ into
our hearts, surrender to God is a choice we must make with every breath. Do a
few deep breathing exercises right now-god's way in, my way out.
You may not be happy about it right now, but in the bigger picture of life,
you'll be glad you chose to surrender to God.