Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the word surrender and what it means in our relationship with Jesus. To surrender is defined as declaring yourself defeated; giving up possession of something; or voluntarily giving something to another. As we think about surrendering our lives to Jesus we see that all three of these definitions come into play. We recognize that we are defeated by sin and cannot overcome it on our own. We give possession of our lives, hopes, dreams and ambitions to Jesus. And in response to His love, we voluntarily give all that we know about ourselves to all of Jesus that we understand.

As good and rational as all of that sounds the problem is that to surrender to anyone or anything, even to Jesus, isn’t an easy thing to do; it goes totally against our human nature. It goes against our exaggerated sense of individuality and the mistaken belief that we can manage and control our own lives.

However, once we come to recognize how much Jesus loves us, once we recognize how just and fair He is, and once we recognize that Jesus has a plan and purpose for our lives, all of our objections to surrendering our lives to Him are broken. Instead of viewing the surrender of our lives to Jesus as something that is onerous and should be avoided at all cost, as we view most other times of surrender, we see that surrendering to Jesus is the best choice we could ever make. 

Surrendering to Jesus is where our relationship with Him truly begins and living in an attitude of surrender to Him helps us to get out of the way so that Jesus is free to work in our lives. With surrender we can receive all that Jesus has planned for us, but without surrender we can never abide in Him.

Total surrender to Jesus is giving to Him all that we know about ourselves to all of Him that we know. Take some time this week to:

1. Invite Jesus to reveal to you any area of your life that you need to surrender to Him.

2. Invite Jesus to reveal more of Himself to you as you spend time with Him in Bible study and prayer.

Then watch and listen with expectation to see what Jesus wants to do in you.

                                                 In Him,

                                                      Mark