What do you mean surrender?

Psalm 73:25 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.”

Recently, the Lord has been teaching me about the idea of surrender.  

This is a very hard concept because I feel so many of us get it wrong.  Either we don’t quite grasp what is actually being asked of us in surrender or we are too stubborn to choose it.  For me, honestly, it has been both.

I think it would be fair to say that my ignorance encourages my stubbornness.  I have never had a clear understanding of surrender and, even when I’m encouraged to do so, I usually respond with, “no, I’m good” or “That sounds way to hard…I don’t know if I can do that.”

Growing up listening to messages about surrendering ourselves to Christ It was always taught that when we surrender we have to give up everything. The verse that is almost always referenced is Matthew 16:24-25 which says “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”   

 

I have never been able to do it.  To give up everything, in my mind, meant that I would no longer be me.  That I would have to give up on my friends and family, my hobbies, my hopes, my dreams, my comforts, my safe places.  

All these things I was so attached to and afraid to lose.  Because “who am I without those things?” The hardest thought was that they would be gone forever. Never to be seen or heard from again.  I didn’t want to leave the people, places, and things that I love so dearly behind.  As scared as I was back then and as scared as I have been recently, I have been looking it all wrong.  It’s not something I have to do.  It’s something I get to choose.

Surrender is a choice.  It’s a choice to become nothing and let Christ become everything.  It is choosing to let go of all that you have and all that you are, trusting the Father to give you something better. Surrender means we lose control of everything because we can’t control anything apart from ourselves.  

We surrender the outcome of our lives, our circumstances; We surrender our gifts, talents, and dreams to Him who works everything for the good of those who love Him.  It is living on behalf of Christ rather than ourselves.

I want to close with the words of the apostle Paul.  Paul embodied surrender better than anyone.  

In Philippians 3:8 he writes “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”