To have intimacy with God; requires our
surrender!
We were created for a
relationship with God and others. It’s
how our need to be loved is fulfilled.
To fully experience God’s love we need to draw near to Him. The closer we draw to God; the more we will
experience His love and forgiveness.
However, it is only as we surrender to Him that we are able to draw
close to Him.
Surrender is a term used in
warfare and implies giving up our rights to the conqueror. It is not what anyone naturally wants to
do. Surrendering to God however has its
benefits.
For I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a
future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)
God’s plans for us are
good! As our conqueror He will bless us
and give us true freedom.
There are three different
levels of surrender:
1. There is the surrender for
us to accept our need of salvation.
This is a work of the Holy
Spirit to convict us and lead us to our need of salvation. Until you come to
understand your failure in sin and inability to cover for it; you cannot see your need of salvation. It is the Holy Spirit’s work to bring us to
the end of ourselves to see our need to be saved.
And when He has come, He will convict
the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. John
16:8 (NKJV)
2. There is the surrender for us to accept the
provision of salvation in Jesus Christ.
But as many as received Him, to them He
gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His
name. John 1:12 (NKJV)
This too is a work of the
Holy Spirit; to bring us to the answer in Christ! To believe in the name of Jesus means that we
accept:
a) who He is - God of very
God.
b) what He has done - died for
our sins in our place as a perfect sacrifice.
c) what He accomplished -
overcame the punishment of sin which is death and arose to everlasting
life.
d) what He offers us -
forgiveness of our sin, a restored relationship with God and the promise
of everlasting life with Him.
3. There is the surrender for us to accept our
dependence on Jesus Christ daily.
When He had called the people to Himself, with His
disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Mark 8:34
(NKJV)
I have been crucified with Christ; it is
no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which 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 (NKJV)
This is the goal in the life
of every Christian. It is living life with a complete trust in Jesus Christ in
all things and for all things. It is
letting go of self dependence and depending totally on Christ!
But why do we resist to
surrendering?
Pride: we know better and we can handle life our self.
Fear: out of a concern of what God will or will not do to
us or how He may change us.
Lie: we accept Satan’s lies and deceptions that if we
surrender to God our life will be hard and/or miserable. That God’s aim is only to punish us. That no one knows us better than ourselves
and we can only help ourselves.
Surrender is the door through
which Christians must pass if intimacy with God is to be achieved. It’s the passage door into a relationship
with God and it’s the door into a mature and close relationship in which God
will bless us.
True Christian surrender
means:
* following God’s leading
even without knowing the destination.
* waiting for God’s answer
without knowing when it will come.
* expecting God’s miracle
without knowing how it will be done.
* trusting God through life
events even when you don’t understand
Complete surrender is
depending on God to work things out without my manipulation of others or
forcing my way or control. Genuine
surrender is changing the things that I can change and trusting God with
everything else.
