Absolute surrender – let me tell you where I got those words. I used them myself often, and you have heard them numerous times. But once, in Scotland, I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ’s Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is. There was in our company a godly Christian worker who has much to do in training other workers for Christ, and I asked him what he would say was the great need of the Church-the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly:
“Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.”
The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the Christian workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve. Whereas, others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.
~ Andrew Murray
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing…. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ~ from Romans 7
A dear friend just asked me a question. It was a really good question. That friend asked, “Why can’t I stay sober? I don’t get it.” i appreciated the honesty. No excuses, just a solid life question.
It seems the larger question (don’t get side-tracked addicts, this one is for us) is, “Why can’t i really do ANYTHING good on a consistent basis?” What is up with this!!!!??? I am really trying to be good. I WANT to be good.
We try, fail and try again… Only to screw things up AGAIN. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh beloved. Breath for a moment. Just wait, there is an answer.
Here it is: Are you ready?
You can’t stay sober (or quit looking at porn, or lying, or hating, or worrying, or being angry). Not ever. You can’t make it happen. It is impossible.
Oh, great. That is not what we hoped to hear.
Actually… It is really good news.
What?
Hey, this blogger likes to defer to experts on important matters. Let’s do it here.
“If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.”
~ Mother Teresa
~ Mother Teresa
Let’s cut to the chase. Big words cheapen the profound sometimes. Here goes:
As believers, if we hold on to any right to any of our old life, it is like leaving part of a cancerous tumor behind after surgery. That tumor will grow back and kill us dead. And it will, most likely, be a pitiful and painful death too. The only answer is total annihilation of our old selves. That “old man” cannot be rehabilitated any more than cancerous cells can be made normal again. The programming of the DNA in a cancerous cell is whacked. There is no error-correcting code that can be inserted. It must be removed and replaced with living tissue that is allowed to grow back into place.
Seen in this light, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit – when a person fully trusts Christ for their salvation – starts to look like a whole lot more than some theological concept. The life we now live is His Life now growing in us. The old human we were has been excised from our existence like a cancerous tumor, and in its place a newly-created life is formed and growing.
But here’s the rub. HOW do we make this happen? Well, we don’t. G_d does it. But, there is one element required for this process to get started properly. We have to actually ALLOW that old man to die. G_d will not force Himself upon you. He is not a puppet-master, or some zombie-maker.
Oh, make no mistake, He even has to give us the power and willingness to actually yield, but we gotta yield. Everything. Absolute, abject, total surrender to the presence of G_d in our inner being is a pre-requisite to us having the ability to actually start behaving like we were designed to behave.
See, the problem is that – for our whole lives – we tried to do the impossible with equipment that was never designed to carry the full load and duty of a righteous life. We tried to use our limited minds and bodies to approximate what can only be done with the infusion of power by G_d’s infinitely empowering Spirit. We were trying to do infinitely hard things on a limited power budget.
So, we can keep trying – and die a painful, fetid death in the trying.
Or…
We can surrender everything to Him – and live a profound, powerful life of righteousness, joy and peace that is fueled by the infinite strength of His grace.
There is no middle-ground.
Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda an important question. He asked the man if he actually wanted to be made well. Surely, that question is ever before us. Do we want to be made better? Or, would we rather rot before we hand over the domain of our life?
Time to answer another really good question reader. Are we willing to be made better? Or, are we even willing to be made willing to be better?
Would that we would give G_d a foothold in our lives tonight at the very least. Let Him in beloved. All is well in Him.
The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they have not yet come to the end of themselves. We are still giving some of the orders, and we are still interfering with God’s working within us.
~ A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Great resources for the serious candidate for absolute surrender to G_d:
