What comes to mind when you think of the word surrender? Weakness? Giving up? Something you’d only do if you were forced to?
It may remind us of wartime photographs we’ve seen in history books of the leader of a country signing their name on a document in humiliation, declaring victory for their enemy. They used all their resources until there was no other choice. The inevitable came true.
However, surrender that submits to a higher authority can also end conflict and restore peace in an entirely different way. The difference is the one you surrender to.
The Bible turns the idea of surrender around to mean a voluntary choice to willingly allow God to take control of your life. It doesn’t mean He’s won an unfair “fight” with you that you could never win and takes joy in that. It’s the opposite: it’s because He loves you as a good Father and wants the very best for you.
When a matter of life or death occurs, who is it that even the most resistant and defiant people cry out to for help? God. Sometimes it takes the most extreme circumstances to bring someone to their knees – in prayer. It’s only then that they acknowledge God is the only One who has the power to give life and provide restoration.
In Proverbs 23:26 (NLT) we read a verse that gives us more insight into the reason these personal turning point moments happen in our lives. They get our attention and give us a choice:
“O my son, give me your heart. May your eyes take delight in following my ways.”
Let’s think about a few of the reasons we can be so resistant to surrendering our lives to follow God.
Some people are “scrappy survivors”. They’ve been conditioned by a challenging life to be independent and strong – the hard way. They have a difficult time trusting anyone, including God. They’ve been so hurt they don’t want to risk even more, in case it collapses the fragile balance they’re trying to maintain emotionally, financially, and in their relationships.
Some people are proudly self-reliant. They don’t want anyone telling them what to do. They believe that what they have in life is because they’ve earned it on their own and want to control every aspect of it themselves. They think if they give God control of their life He will take it all away, not recognizing He was the Giver in the first place.
Some have made extremely bad choices. One after another, they’ve added links to a chain that leads to a forced surrender that finally stops them from causing harm to others – and themselves. Habits have been made that need to be broken. They feel regret, shame, and unworthy of forgiveness. But surrendering to God can break any chain and healing of the soul is available to everyone by the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ.
So what’s really behind this struggle we have with allowing God to have first place in all our decisions and choices? There are two reasons. First, our own sinful nature that wants its own way (even when it harms us). Second, our enemy satan is pulling us away from God using all the ammunition he has. One tactic is lies because he is the father of lies (read John 8:44). Lies create doubt and his list of “greatest hits” is the same as it’s been throughout history: God doesn’t exist, the Holy Bible is fiction, Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, there are many gods and ways to Heaven, there’s no afterlife or judgement for sin. Sound familiar?
The truth is, if we surrender to satan’s path that leads away from God, we join his army to fight his enemy, Almighty God. The Holy Bible says satan is the one who has already been defeated* and he knows it. But he will never give up the fight until he is destroyed forever, becoming more desperate as time closes in on him with every passing day. But that day will come because God has declared it.
We can take comfort, as believers, that surrendering to God is a weapon we’ve been given to use against this enemy of our souls, as we read in James 4:7 (ESV):
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
There is no greater example of humble obedience than Jesus. Philippians 2:5-11 (NLT) tells us this:
“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated Him to the place of highest honor and gave Him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The most powerful faith and trust in God can be quiet, humble surrender.
RESET HIGHER: It’s a one-time decision to become a Christian, followed by a daily choice to trust God with everything in your life. To be honest, I’ve been through struggles where I felt that I “had to” comply with God and it didn’t seem fair at the time. Now, looking back with more perspective, I see more clearly that if I’d gotten my way, it would not have been for my good. To put it a different way, God saved me from myself!
How about you? In what ways can you see that God has been a good Father to you and protected you, even though you didn’t submit to what He was asking you to do? Are you ready to commit to stay in His will for your life – for good?
*Read Revelation 20
