I Surrender!

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – which is your spiritual worship.”

Surrender is a term with negative connotations. There are not many people who would willingly give their power or possessions to another, yet this is what God asks His children to do.

In today’s verse God urges the Roman Christians to consider His display of mercy as He took their punishment for sin. He encourages them to surrender their bodies willingly to Him as living sacrifices. This, Paul writes, is their “reasonable response” given the enormity of what God has done, but we all know that it can be the hardest thing for us to do.

I remember many times watching my brothers wrestling with Grandpa and later you guys wrestling with Dad where you would give it all you had. Eventually, though you hated to do it, you had to surrender to the greater power of the one who was older and stronger. No one ever wanted to give up but was eventually forced to in complete exhaustion.

This is not the kind of surrender God wants from us. He desires that we willingly give control of our lives to Him, trusting Him to guide, discipline, and mold us so that we are more and more like Christ.

Unfortunately, the attitude of most is aptly stated in the lines of William Ernest Henley’s poem, Invictus. Instead of surrender we would rather keep control, boasting that we are the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls.

But isn’t it a great risk to turn every part of your life over to someone else?  Not if you truly know and trust the One to whom you surrender. When you begin to understand the perfect love of God, a love that was willing to suffer and die for you, that perfect love will cast out all fear.

The rigorous disciplines that He will put you through will be for the purpose of refining you, removing any harmful attitudes and actions, making you fruitful in ministry, and developing you to be more like Christ. Every trial you endure will be carefully guided by the hand of God. As you trust Him fully you will begin to see that His way is best and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

We all have a choice to make. Will we wrestle with God until we are forced to bow the knee and confess that He is Lord, or will we willingly surrender the right to be master of our fate and captain of our soul to the One who made us, loves us, and knows what’s best for us? You decide.

Love,

Mama