Surrender Is God’s Will For Our Life

Surrender is God’s will for our life. When we move from being a believer to being a follower of Christ, God is ready and willing to show us what our next step should be. Surrender is freedom. Life lived by our own design is unstable- really! It is impossible as humans to make choices that are good, solid and cause all aspects of our life to be cared for appropriately. There is a saying that goes: “If you neglect anything or anyone in the name of success you have failed.” We all have failed, but the good news is that God is waiting to guide our lives and all it takes is surrender to His will.

Surrender to the will of God puts us on solid ground. We leave our life of independence, doing what we feel is right in order to surrender to what is truly the right way to live.

“But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”(1 Tim 6:11-12 NIV)

The New Testament is called the last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ. Therefore we can find the will of God within the pages of the New Testament. Jesus had to die to pardon our sins, so that as we live His Way, we have access to God the Father’s blessings.

God Guides Us Towards His Will After We Surrender

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”(Prov 3:5-6)

Surrendering to God’s will, or giving up our idea of life will actually give us more blessings than life lived on our own accord. But we can’t live this holy life without the Holy Spirit changing our mind. So even though we make the choice to surrender and follow Christ, we aren’t left to our own willpower to make it happen.

” I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and bring it about that you walk in My statutes, and are careful and follow My ordinances.” (Ex 36:26-27)

” I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”(John 10:10 NIV)

God the Father sent His son as a perfect and blameless “lamb” to redeem us so we could live freely. Once we confess our sin and repent (make a 180 degree change) we are cleansed and empowered.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”(Romans 8:11)

The Abundant Life Is In The New Covenant

The New Covenant, New Testament or new agreement God the Father had planned all along, was to make it easy for us. If we do not accept Jesus and don’t receive the Holy Spirit as our helper, we are subjected to Satan who then as the right to come in and lead us into a lifestyle of sin. So when we choose to live without God we are choosing to be subjected to Satan’s wrath.

 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly”(John 10:10)

We all experience Satan’s wrath before we surrender to Christ. Satan desires to kill our relationships, jobs, confidence and our health- everything. After we have lived many years dealing with problem after problem we may come to a point when we realize that life is simply too hard to do on our own. This is our greatest turning point- will we or won’t we look for help from above.

“Consider it all joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.”(James 1:2-4)

Consider a devastating situation to be pure joy? Really?

When we get to an end point, a point at which we can do nothing to solve our dilemma and nothing has been effective to take away our pain long term, we have arrived at the most important choice of our life. Choice one is that we can turn to God and be empowered by the Holy Spirit to wash us of pain and give us peace. Choice two is that we can continue our life in our own strength and hope for the best. If we turn to God for help, most likely nothing will have miraculously changed but all of a sudden we have an inner peace. This peace piques curiosity in most and can be our catalyst to find out more about our heavenly Father.

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”(Jer 33:3)

God the Father provided His son Jesus to be our Savior. To cleanse us of our prior life and lead us to the best life. Trying hard, working harder and using human wisdom and effort will never get us to the beautiful life we were meant to live. Not only that, we can’t wash away pain and unforgiveness from our own heart- only Jesus can.

Let me give you a practical example. Johnathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in the series “The Chosen” gave up his day job and put all his effort in pursuing that which he knew God had lead him to do- namely acting. So he quit his side job and attempted to find an acting job. When we was down and out and no job in site, he had only a few dollars left in his pocket. In his time of desperation, he surrendered to God through a prayer, Roumie said:

“God, I’m going to use your words in the Bible “come to me all those who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”

Then Roumie said

“Jesus, I’m out, I surrender.” Not long after he prayed, he found checks in his mailbox to cover his bills and three months later got offered an acting job to play Jesus in the series “The Chosen.”

Surrender stops our effort and allows the most powerful force in the Universe to step in- God.

Stories like this are everywhere. I have my own and you may have one too. The point I am trying to make is that humans are limited. We all make choices that are based on fear rather than love and these can take us down a rabbit hole where we endure problem after problem. We need God’s omniscience to guide our life. And when we surrender we will be amazed and astonished at the blessings He has for us.

Our surrender and our close relationship with the Lord through Bible study will the best modeling we can do for our family. We will have blessings coming from it that we never imagined.

“God can do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all we can think or imagine according to the power that works in us.” (Eph 3:20)

Food For Thought,

Lisa