Surrender: Relinquishing my will up to His.
If you are born again, Christ became Lord of your life the day you received Him into your heart. Colossians 2:6 and 7 enjoin us to continue growing in that Lordship relationship: Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.Perhaps over the years Christs Lordship has been compromised like the foxes eating away at the cluster of grapes mentioned in Song of Solomon 2:15: Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards. (Song of Sol. 2:15)
The fact is that Christ is indeed the Lord of all, which all of us will acknowledge in eternity, either voluntarily or involuntarily: God exalted [Christ] to the highest placethat at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11)
Recently I met with an old friend who confided in me that all his life he has been a rebel. Only in recent months has God been able after years of intense discipline to get to the core of his rebellion. And the cost of his spiritual insurgency? The devastation of his first marriage, and near destruction his second. He went on to tell me that after his mother conceived him, his father went off to war, returning when he was 16 months old. By then even at that young age he, with his indomitable will had already over-run his mother as she tried to cope with raising her brood of children in the absence of his father.
He related that though he was raised in a wonderful Christ-honoring family, his beloved father, try as he may, was unable to break his will in order to bring him into compliance with Christian and family values. While unimaginably gifted in business, he has, over several decades experienced one set back after another. Finally, in his late 40s God miraculously broke through to him, and he surrendered his life to Christ. And yet, in spite of his conversion, his fierce pride continued not only to profoundly plague his domestic life, but also his career. Now in his senior years, looking back over his life, he is convinced that God disciplined him through his repeated career and domestic struggles as a means of breaking his towering will.
Let us be honest: Few of us are willing to abandon ourselves without equivocation to Christs Lordship. One reason is that we are fearful of giving Him control of our lives on His terms. We love to coddle our lusts, our pride, our anger, and our judgmental attitudes toward others. We bristle when someone calls us to account. We refuse to surrender our agenda to God. We refuse to seriously dig into Gods word. When the stark truth of Gods word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit does pinpoint our rebellion, we twist or water down the Scriptures in order to justify our actions. Rare is our prayer that the Spirit of God would expose us at the core, and root out our sins.
The surrendered life is a broken life. It is a life of genuine humility that grieves over its sinful failings (Matt. 18:4; Ps. 51:6). It is a life that refuses to put self forward (Mk. 9:35) . Rather, the surrendered life is voluntarily given up for others in humble service (Phil. 2:5-8). Surrendered followers of Christ have a soft edge about them. They step back and put others first (Rom. 12:10). They have dealt with the bitterness that life brings their way by giving it up to the Sovereignty of God (Rom. 12:10). They live and breathe the prayer Jesus uttered before going to the cross, Not as I will, but as you will. (Matt. 26:39b) They whole heartedly embrace Jesus injunction to his disciples, If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, carry his cross every day and keep close behind me. For the man who wants to save his live will lose it, but the man who loses his life for my sake will save it. (Lk. 9:23, 24 – Phil. Trans.)
QUESTION: How do you think Jesus evaluates the quality of your Lordship to Him? Is there a change you need to make?