AT THE END OF SURRENDER

The word surrender is translated to "ekdotos" in Greek and this means to be handed over or delivered up.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight."Surrender is saying, "I don't understand this, it makes no sense to me BUT i will trust in you" You are handing over your own understanding and allowing it to fall out of your hands into the hands of the Lord. 

Last Sunday i got baptized and I remember how it did not register to me that I was going to give my life over to Christ again.I say again because I was born into a christian family but I had not made the choice of following Him until recently. The moments leading up to me getting on the stage brought feelings of nervousness but it wasn't until i got on the stage that i felt overwhelmed by the weight of the choice i was now making to rededicate my life back to the Lord. I felt this immense wave of emotions and all i could do was cry. It was finally my turn to get in the water and holding back tears i placed one foot into the tub with the second one following straight after. The pastor mentioned a couple of words and I remember the lady baptizing me ask me if i the Lord Jesus was my Lord and savior. A small, barely heard whisper came out of my mouth and into the water i went. The overwhelming emotions i felt, washed away with this immense stillness and quietness that unnerved me as well as confused me. I had never felt that way before and I felt conflicted. There was a surrender of my heart back to Him that occurred. I know this because i felt it earlier although I could not put it in words but then it still didn't sink in my mind.

Philippians 4:7 says "And God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." 
Living in a world with so much going on; wars, and the chaos of the this perishing world is all we have ever known and that is why I see that that peace was something I could not grasp. There has never been a moment of complete silence in my mind. With the endless lists of things to do on a daily , that quietness and stillness unnerved me but at the end of my surrender was a reassurance that I would be taken care of. I handed myself over to the Lord that day and what he allowed me to feel was the reassurance that He has control. Living in the world comes with so many distractions and worries like school, your friends, sickness or even work and honestly when you have lived in that environment for such a long time it is not easy because it requires you to let go of everything you have known and cling on to this new space that the Lord is walking you through.

Romans 12:1 Says "So then, my friends, because of God's great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer." 

By living sacrifice this scripture is talking of Jesus. Jesus offered himself up as a living sacrifice for our sins. It is basically saying the prerequisite of living a life that is pleasing is living Christlike. We are shown what surrender looks like through the life of Jesus. The Bible talks of how Instead of this, of His own free will He gave up all He had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.[ Philippians 2:7] 

That was His first act of surrender. As we discussed earlier in the beginning surrender in greek is described as handing over and Jesus handed over all His wealth, comfort, authority because He trusted as well as had a deeply rooted peace in the Lord that He gave up His own will. We read that and we think because He is God it was easy for Him but I don't think so. For Jesus to have to depend on the will of the Lord, it meant it had to be something hard for Him but He trusted in the promise of the Lord. We need to realise that the Lord does not waste words and so because Jesus knew the character of the Lord He knew God was and is trustworthy. 

Hebrews 4: 15 says "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin."

I used to read this scripture and it would go over my head. I never truly saw the beauty of this verse but here it is talking of Jesus who is our High priest. It first talks of how He can empathize with us; the Lord knows how it feels because He struggled with a lot of the things we have struggled with. He came from abundant wealth to struggle being the son of a carpenter so there must have been days He experienced hunger, He used to walk miles to get to towns during His 3 year ministry so He knows exhaustion. He has felt drained and we know that because He always made sure to go back to the Father after His sermons due to His great fame.

Secondly, it says  that He was tempted in every way this means anger, lust,laziness,fear, doubt, BUT is also says He did NOT sin. We see a glimpse of how He went through temptation in the wilderness in the book of matthew before the start of His ministry. Because Jesus was born outside the law of sin and death, sin did not have the hold on Him it had on us who were immediately born into a life of sin because of our forefather Adam.He came into this world already knowing who He was but where am I heading with this? All His life up until the cross He was tempted. There were multiple times that the enemy had tried to cause Him to sin and we see that even when He was spat on during the torture he endured before the cross or when He was mocked.

It shows that surrender is an everyday choice but it is also hard. Through the death of our sinful nature and birth of our new self in Christ we are set free from the law of sin and death because now our reward is eternity through Christ. We are able to use our free will to choose the Lord but it is hard. We see a glimpse of how hard that was for the Jesus because in the garden of Gethsemane Luke writes what happened. 

Luke 22:42-44 says "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”  An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground"

Jesus was scared, His flesh did not want to go through with it but His spirit understood the importance of the task that lay before Him.This verse shows that Jesus did not have to die for us but He did so in obedience to the Lord. He was very much man as He was God.A lot of people interpret this verse as Him sweating blood but if we look closely we see that in that moment He was weak and the Lord sent an angel to strengthen Him and He continuously kept seeking the Lord with such a deep and immense need.

Jesus understood that the only way He could walk out the Father's will was by relying on the Father. It was a choice He made and although it is hard we need to choose too. At the end of His surrender was the authority over all things that was now given to Him for His obedience and a seat at the right hand side of the Lord. The Lord fulfilled the word He had release to Jesus but all He needed to do was surrender and be obedient. For me it was a peace at the end of it and hope. What is the Lord promising you as long as you stay obedient?

Reflection:

• What areas of your life are you not choosing God?
• What have you been loving more than the Lord?
• How can you make that choice to willingly make more time to surrender to the Lord?

Prayer:

Dear heavenly father, I thank you because through your son you allowed us to see how a life living in obedience  and surrender looks like. I am unable to live a life surrendered on my own Lord and I pray you will sustain me and strengthen me to keep choosing you. Lord i seek your forgiveness for the times that I chose not to surrender but to live in sin. I pray that you would forgive me for loving anything more than you. Help me depend on you and trust in the promise you have for me and my life. Help me not lean in my own understanding but to hand over my life and my will trusting that in surrender to you, your plan is better. Thank you Jesus.

In Jesus' name, Amen.