What does it mean to surrender your life to Christ? The definition of surrender states that the word is a verb which intimates action. It involves the cessation of resistance, giving up, or abandoning oneself to someone or something else. Surrender means submission.
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23). This concept is crucial to enable believers to truly walk the narrow path that leads to life. Firstly, one must leave the wide road that leads to destruction. You cannot remain with one foot one one road and the other foot on the other, since these two routes are going in different directions.
Move forward and do not doubt what Jesus promised. He is the gate. Those who try to keep one foot in the world and one foot in God’s kingdom will be unstable. James calls the person who doubts – double minded and unstable (James 1:8).
NO ONE CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS
Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:24). Yet the world is filled with people attempting to do exactly this.
Today’s culture is firmly entrenched in the sovereignty of self; the notion of placing oneself first and foremost. Looking out for number one. This generation is enamored with self, full of self and idolizes self. Self help, self esteem, self love, self compassion. Self focus. Selfies.
Society has even gone to the extreme of sologamy. You can now marry yourself. Placing yourself above all others. What it really amounts to is self idolatry. It’s narcissism wrapped wedding cake and professed in front of a mirror.
Jesus said the first will be last and the last will be first (Matthew 20:16). And in Philippians 2:3-4, Paul writes, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
So how much are we to surrender ourselves? One hundred per cent. All. Complete surrender. Jesus said the most important commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” This means surrendering every corner of our lives to Jesus all the time.
It means walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit within us. We will never experience the transformative power of Jesus Christ if we refuse to allow His Lordship over us. This calls for humility. James 4:10 states, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” And 1 Peter 5:6 instructs us, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.”
The apostle Paul states in Galatians 5:16-17, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. The two are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST
In humility we surrender to the sovereignty of Christ. Through faith we pledge full allegiance to our Creator. His sovereignty is not totalitarian or impersonal. It is exercised through immeasurable love and mercy. We ought to reciprocate with love and mercy to Him and to others. As King of Kings and Lord of Lords, all authority belongs to Jesus. Psalm 24:1 teaches, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.”
His authority extends over every area of our lives. Through Christ, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
In Colossians 3:17, Paul teaches, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Furthermore, Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”
Moreover, Paul declares, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy spirit who is in you, whom you received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
When Jesus died for you, He made an investment in you. You honor Him by providing a return on that investment; by producing fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8). This requires obedience. We must be willing to participate in God’s calling upon our lives. Respond as Isaiah did: “Here I am Lord, send me.” (Isaiah 6:8).
The most liberating thing about dying to self and surrendering to Christ is the freedom we have from the bondage of sin. The wholesome, unadulterated purity of mind, body and soul. When we walk in the light of Christ daily, knowing that He drives out the darkness before us. This is the hallmark of righteousness we gain by capitulating to Jesus.
What begins as conquering sin leads to serving God as an ambassador for Christ which can lead us to do things we never even dreamed of. Indeed, God has greater plans for us than we imagine for ourselves, if only we surrender to His purpose.
THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
Romans 14:7-9 gives us a clear perspective of the lordship of Jesus Christ and the logic of surrendering to His lordship: “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.”
Jesus is the name above all names. “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that 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 the Father.” (2 Philippians 2:9-11).
Well meaning evangelists often appeal to people to make Jesus the Lord of their life. However, Jesus already is Lord of all lives. We must therefore urge people to surrender to His lordship and yield to His sovereignty. Not a partial surrender, but absolute and total capitulation. We must hand over the keys to every room in the house. Our spiritual health depends upon it.
And in doing so, we will be completely sanctified. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To this end we were born. Amen!
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