Surrender

What is surrender? Surrender in Greek, 'paraddidomi', means to give in the hands of another; to give over into one's power or use, to commit or commend, to permit or allow. Surrendering to God is just that. To put our whole life in His hands and to trust Him completely with it. It is to trust God with our future, our past, our finances, and everything else we need/desire. It is to give up everything and be willing to serve Him wholeheartedly. It is to allow Him to use us completely by Him, not trying to fulfill our own fleshly desires, but offer up our life in surrender to what He has for us. Without surrender we will never fully be able to live for God and do what He desires for each of us. "If you are willing to live for Christ, you must first surrender."

In Revelation, God talks to us about being lukewarm. He says, "because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth." A lot of Christians live lukewarm today. They say they are Christians, but live like the rest of the world. The Lord does not want us to live like the rest of the world, He wants us to be set apart.  We can't straddle the fence. He doesn't want us to live that way. All God asks for us is to give ourselves to Him, to surrender completely to Him. Jesus gave Himself away to us first and so we should do the same by giving ourselves back and to surrender all to Him. "For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."He doesn't want some of you, He wants all of you.

In Romans, Paul says, " I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed by the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." When we don't surrender completely to God this verse in Romans is impossible to live out. How can we keep ourselves different from the world if we can't fully surrender our life, our time, our energy to the one who gave us life, the one who sets us apart? We can't. I know a lot of us should ask ourselves, "have I surrendered completely to God?"

If you are struggling to surrender completely to Him and His will for your life, I challenge you to dig in your word and ask God to teach you how. His word never returns void. All the answers are right there. He loves you and has the best plans for your life. Trust Him and surrender your plans, your fears, your dreams, and everything to Him, and wait and see what God has in store for you next; He has a plan. He loves you. He knows and wants best for you. He wants you to be used by Him. So keep going after him wholeheartedly, and even when everyone else is going the opposite way,  keep going. Keep trusting in Him because "without Faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him."

------Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you show each of us how to completely surrender our whole life to you. Show us how to surrender our fears, our plans, our dreams, our future and everything to you. Let us not be lukewarm, but let us live a life fully surrendered to you. Forgive us for not putting you first like we should, help us to know you more. Let us decrease while you increase. We need your wisdom. Thank you for being so good to us even though we fail you daily. I pray not our will, but your will be done, in Jesus' name,  Amen.--------