Surrender

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.” Romans 12.1, The Message.

Surrender is not actually a word that is found much in the Bible; I was only able to find one reference, in the NIV version. But it is a word that has become popular in our current Christian language, our ‘Christianese’, and in the songs we sing in church. So is it a Biblical concept, and if so, what exactly does it mean to surrender our lives to God? The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines the word as follows: “to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand . . . or to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another” and “to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner, or to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence).” The Thesaurus gives the following synonyms: for the verb, abandon, cede, concede, deliver up, forego, give up, part with, relinquish, renounce, resign, waive, yield, and the noun, capitulation, relinquishment, renunciation, submission, yielding.

While the word surrender is not used in our translations, Jesus certainly made it clear that we are to do just that:

The disciples gave up everything to follow Him (Luke 5.11);

When Jesus said to Levi the tax collector, Follow Me, “He left all, rose up, and followed Him” (Luke 5.28);

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9.23);

“Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9.60);

“Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail” (Luke 12.33).

Surrender is not something that happens automatically at salvation. Erik Rees in his book Shape speaks about your surrender moment, and he says most believers who have done this can point to a specific point when they first began to surrender. Although surrender is a lifelong, day-by-day challenge, I know when I first surrendered my life wholly and completely to God.

I had been a Christian for 25 years at that point. I had had a dramatic conversion in the early 70’s, from a rebellious hippy lifestyle of drugs, drink, Eastern religions, to finding Jesus in a hippy church in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the time of the so-called “Jesus Revolution”, when many young people turned to God. My life turned around 180 degrees and I have never wanted to turn back. I loved the Lord and served him for 25 years, going to church every Sunday, having quiet times, praying, teaching our children about Him, even teaching a Bible Study at one point. But I loved Him on my terms, conditionally, not with “all my heart, soul, strength and mind.” He was a part of my life, an important part, but not all of it. I was afraid to surrender completely to Him, afraid of what He might ask me to do, what He might ask me to give up. I had a fear of letting go.

The irony of that is seen in this C S Lewis quote: “The more we get what we call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.”

We can only become truly ourselves, and really know ourselves, and live out our full potential, when we surrender completely to Him, when we say, “Take this lump of clay and use it for Your glory and Your Kingdom, even if it means no glory for me ever.”

Erik Rees says: “We surrender when we hand off every aspect of our lives—past, present, and future—to God and trust him completely with all of it.” He then quotes Mark 8.34 NLT: “If any of you wants to be my follower, . . . you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me.”

Seven years ago, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, we were hosting a “video club” in our home on Friday nights. A group of us would get together and watch Christian teaching on DVD or video. This was the first time I heard Bruce Wilkinson teach, and he has been a major influence in my spiritual life ever since, a mentor to me, through his books and teaching.

One of the series that we watched, and which led to my surrender moment, was on the Exodus. God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt after having performed amazing miracles: the water in the Nile River had turned into blood; frogs came up out of the river and turned up everywhere, even in their ovens and beds; the dust of the earth became lice; there were swarms of flies; a plague on the Egyptian livestock (but not on the Israelites livestock); boils; hail; marauding locusts; darkness over the whole land for three days (“But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings” Exodus10.23b); and finally the death of all the firstborn of Egypt, except for those houses where there was blood on the lintel. “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” At this point Pharaoh gave up and released the Israelites, and Moses led them out of Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea, which God miraculously opened up for them, but all the Egyptians whom Pharaoh, having realized that he had just lost his entire labor force, had sent to capture and bring the Israelites back to Egypt, drowned when the waters flooded back. But before the Israelites even crossed the Red Sea, despite all the miracles they had just seen, they started complaining.

Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word we told you in Egypt saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
Exodus 14.11-12

That sets the tone for the rest of the Exodus. After crossing the Red Sea, they sing a song of praise to God, “the Lord shall reign forever and ever” (15.18); He is our King. Three days later they were thirsty, so what do they do? Having seen all the miracles which God performed in Egypt, they come to their King who they know always provides for them, and ask Him to give them water, right? Wrong! They go to Moses, and they complain again (15.24). And the Bible tells us, “there He tested them.” (15.25). They then spend a while at the oasis at Elim, and then head into the Wilderness of Sin. Again they complain against Moses and Aaron, “Oh that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! [Conveniently forgetting they were oppressed slaves condemned to hard labor]. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Exodus 16.3.

Of course God provides for them yet again, but the important verse here is v4: God says again, “that I may test them”. We know that they failed the tests again and again -- they gathered too much manna, and it rotted, they didn’t gather enough before the Sabbath, and went hungry. Again and again they failed the test to trust God, and again and again He provided for them. He gave them the shade of a cloud by day in the searing heat of the desert, and a pillar of fire to guide them and warm them in the icy desert nights. Even their clothes never wore out. But eventually they failed the ultimate test. When the spies returned from spying out the land of Canaan, they again cried out, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!” Numbers 14.2. So God gives them their wish, and they all get to die in the wilderness, except for Joshua and Caleb who trusted the Lord despite the dangers in Canaan. Only by Moses’ intervention did God spare them at all!

This really spoke to me, and I realized that God had been testing me, bringing me back to the same trial over and over again. And I realized that I had to make a decision. I had been saved, as the Israelites were from Egypt, and if I never did another thing for God in all my life I would still go to be with Him when I died, but I wanted more.

I wanted to enter the Promised Land.
I wanted to serve God fully, become part of God’s army, fight to extend His Kingdom.
I wanted to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
I wanted to give myself completely to Him.
I wanted to earn rewards, to invest in my future in His kingdom.

Crossing the Jordan required faith on the part of the Israelites, and they knew there were giants and battles to fight on the other side. Surrendering doesn’t guarantee we are going to have an easy life, that we will be forever happy. That will only happen when the Kingdom of God comes in its fullness. In this time, in between Jesus’ announcement that the kingdom has come, and the final fulfilment at the end of this age, we have work to do, battles to fight, giants to overcome. Erik Rees calls it “a resolve to be ‘a living sacrifice for him’ (Romans 12.1).” It takes faith.

Gary Best in his book Naturally Supernatural (available in the church library) tells about a daydream he has, where he is on a sixty-six level diving board:

In my daydream, I sensed God say to me, “This is what it is like just before you are about to have your faith and gifting grow.”
“How wonderful!” I responded. “That feeling I know. But how will I actually get them to grow?”
I felt God say to me, “Look over the edge of the board.”
“There’s no water in the pool,” I said, putting down the binoculars.
“Perfect!” God said. “Now, trust me and jump and I’ll fill the pool with water.”
“Can you do that?” I queried.
“Read the Book,” God replied. “I am very good with water. It’s one of my specialties.”
. . . In my mind, I took two steps as though I were about to jump, but quickly stopped and looked down.
“What are you doing?” I imagined God saying.
“Working on my approach,” I replied.
“No, you’re not. You’re checking to see whether I’ve started filling the pool. This is the way it works: You leave the board, then I fill the pool with water.”
Only when the process works this way is our trust fully in God and his generous provision rather than in ourselves.

The enemy will do his worst to keep you from letting go. Remember, he masquerades as an angel of light, so he will tell you the truth, as he did with Adam and Eve, but not the whole truth, and certainly not the consequences of acting on what he tells you. He will say, “You deserve to be happy,” and you’ll think, “Yes, that’s true. I do!” But not at the expense of those around you. Not at the expense of the environment. Not at the expense of Third World starving children, and laborers in the sweat shops in the East. Not at the expense of your spouse and children, your parents, your friends, those who depend on you.

A servant of God lives to make others happy! I would rather have the joy of the Lord, that joy that wells up from deep within and fills one’s whole being with worship and love for God, than to have temporary happiness that brings no fulfillment. The irony is that we think God will take away from us what is precious, when in fact true fulfillment, true joy, truly using the talents and gifts you have been given, true abundant life, only comes when we make Him King of our lives.

It’s a daily surrender, a circumstance-by-circumstance surrender. Gary Best tells a story about a pastor’s conference at which John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement, was speaking. John suddenly stopped in the middle of his message and said, “Many of you want to know the secret of how I operate in the spiritual gifts. I will tell you right now exactly how I do it.” Everybody sat up excitedly. When he shared the simplicity of what he does, the crowd all got a bit restless, and John said to them, “All of you want to be where I am now; none of you wants to start where I started.” Gary Best concludes, “It all begins with giving what we have.” The sad thing is how few Christians do.

When the wealthy young man came to Jesus to ask how he could receive eternal life, he was already doing all the things the Law required. He was a good man. But there was something in his life that he was not willing to surrender, something that meant more to him than the kingdom of God. His money. Jesus could see into his heart; He could see what was more important to him than God. Jesus was not laying down a new doctrine: “Give up all your riches or you cannot be a Christian.” He was however laying down a principle; we are called to give up whatever is of most value to us for Him. There is an urgency in His call to us: Let the dead bury their own dead, give up family for me, take up your cross and follow Me, go into all the world, be witnesses for me.

The absolute surrender of everything into his hands is necessary. If our hearts are willing for that, there is no limit to what God will do for us or to the blessing he will bestow. Andrew Murray

What blessings do we get in return?

• We get to be God’s friends. James 2.23 tells us: “’Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.” Dutch Sheets, in his book Watchman Prayer, tells a story of God speaking to him as a friend:

I was visiting with the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t in intercession, and it wasn’t during my quiet time. It was simply communing while working, sharing some of my inner thoughts with Him, much the same way I might have done with my wife had she been there. Suddenly He spoke to me. It was as natural and matter of fact as if two friends were sharing their hearts. “Japan is really on my heart this morning,” the Holy Spirit said. . . . He then said to me, ”I must have Japan . . . Would you pray for Japan this morning in your session?” How do you like that?! Not a command, “Pray for Japan,” but a question, “Would you?” He was asking me!

• As we can see from the above story, we will experience the excitement of hearing Him speak to us. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” My husband Ashley and I were praying about a job offer he had received, and both of us heard God clearly speak to us. It was a very similar position to one he had been in before, which had involved being available to his employees 24-7, and although it would almost double his salary, we were concerned about the cost involved, particularly in terms of being available to serve God and attend church. In the evening, I clearly heard God say, “Don’t go back to Egypt.” I have shared how much the story of Exodus means to me, and I find God always speaks to us in ways that are meaningful to us. The next morning, when Ashley was spending some time reading his Bible and praying, he read the passage in 1 Kings 13.9 where the man of God was commanded by the Lord not to return by the same way he came. We both knew God was saying Ashley should turn the job down.

• He reveals to us the uniqueness of our being -- our personality, our character, our gifting – and shows us how to use who and what we are for Him.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God–-you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvellously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth, all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day. Psalm 139.14, The Message.

For most of my Christian life, I had been trying to be something, somebody, which I was not. In these last few years, God has been showing me very clearly how uniquely I am made, and how I can use these unique talents and character traits to extend His kingdom. I cannot begin to tell you how exciting and liberating that is. Try it for yourself!

• We sing a song in church: He gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. We can reverse that: when He takes away, He also gives, and our faith grows as we experience the miracle of His provision. “Then He said to His disciples, ‘Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on . . . But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you’” (Luke 12. 22, 31).

You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Abba Father loves you, but He wants your all, not just the little part of you that you are willing to surrender. Jump off that metaphorical diving board in faith today; I guarantee He will fill the pool!

Bibliography

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, © 1979, 1980 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Best, Gary. Naturally Supernatural, Cape Town: Vineyard International Publishing, 2005

Collins Reference Thesaurus in A-Z Form, Great Britain: HarperCollins, 1992.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Peterson, Eugene H. The Message//Remix, Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2003.

Rees, Erik. Shape, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.

Sheets, Dutch. Watchman Prayer, Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2000.

Strong, James. The Strongest Strong’s, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001.

"Yield" image by ChristArt.com: http://www.christart.com/clipart

Sharon Mey, 10/05/2007