Being Holy: Surrender Series

In the past few weeks, we have been looking at how we can be more holy in our living in the new year. First, we looked at repentance and how we must get back to the type of repentance where our sin breaks our hearts. Next, we saw how if we are to have a great relationship with God, it requires connection, setting a daily appointment to study our Bible and pray. Third, we saw how we are separated to God as a precious possession and that we should live like we are. Last week, we looked at how obedience is to be paramount in our lives.

Today, we examine knowing about surrender. Surrender is defined as “to yield something to the possession or power of another.” That is the intellectual part of surrender. Intellectually, we “know” that it would probably be a good idea to surrender to God. But until we come to a place where we “know” by experience that we must surrender to God, it is not real.

KNOW THAT WE ARE NOT OUR OWN

“I know, LORD, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.” Jeremiah 10:23

It sounds a little too simple. We need to know that we are not our own. First, God is our creator. He created man and woman on day six of creation. Further, He formed us in the womb. He literally made us. That makes us His physical possession, but not spiritually.

When we come to a saving knowledge of His grace, and experience the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, then we also become His spiritually. We become all His, lock, stock, and barrel. But often, we don’t act like we are His. We don’t act like “our lives are not our own.” We have to be hit with a knock out punch before we realize that we cannot “plan our own course.”

God made us to depend on Him, to look for His guidance and direction and counsel. We commit our lives to Him, not merely for salvation, but for what we need and where we go every moment of our life.

KNOW THAT WE MUST SUBMIT TO HIM

You know, sometimes we just have to realize that we are over our heads with things in our lives. About a year ago, I was having a lot of trouble breathing comfortably, but I thought that I just had to tough it out. It would improve. Things will get better. They always do. Just wait it out and relax. Things will be OK.

Things did not improve, and I eventually had to go to the ER. I had a lot of fluid built up and needed relief. I put my trust in the doctors and surrendered to their medical expertise and treatment. In doing that, things did get better. If I had been left to my own devices, I may have been in even worse shape.

The same thing is very true with our lives. We can easily get over our heads with circumstances. We think that we just have to tough it out, handle it ourselves, and things will get better. Sometimes, by God’s grace, they might get better. Many times though, they don’t. And we get too stubborn in our pride to admit it.

That is why the Holy Spirit inspired James to utter a command to us: “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

God knows that we are stubborn people who like to think that we are a rugged, individualistic people. After all, He made us, and knows everything about us. That’s why He has to keep reminding us that we must submit and surrender to Him. But it is not just “knowing” in our heads that we must surrender to Him. We must come to the place where we realize in our hearts that we need Him every hour. THAT is when we can truly come to KNOW that we must submit to Him.

KNOW THAT CHRIST WILL LIVE THROUGH US

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20

Paul starts out in this verse saying that he had been crucified with Christ. Let me explain something here. Listen to this: We are not to seek to be crucified with Christ: we must merely surrender to Christ. We have already been crucified with Him. We must fully surrender to Him and live by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the Son of God. We live in the surrendered faith that His death was not only penal, but it was substitutionary, also.