Monday, September 26, 2011

I Surrender!!!


I Surrender! Please…don't kill me!

We talk about surrendering to God a lot.

I surrender this situation…
I surrender this problem…
I surrender this attitude…
I surrender to the Holy Spirit…

I have some bad news for you though if it's followed with the line 'please don't kill me', because Jesus doesn't take prisoners.

When we become Christians, we should be surrendering our lives to Him. We say, I get off the throne of my life and hand the seat to you. It's for you to rule and reign from.

What does Jesus do with our surrendered self? The same thing He does to anything that surrenders to Him, He takes it to the Cross and nails it to it until it's dead. Sorry, no cushy cell or slap across the knuckles, it's the death sentence.

Of course, when you die on the Cross you are resurrected again with Him, you are Born Again, A new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.

Thinking on all this the other day I had a picture of a freshly dug grave, and a pair of hands reaching up scrabbling at the dirt trying to get out. That's not surrender. Surrender is lying down and letting that person die. Letting the flesh be crucified so the Spirit can soar. Letting the earth cover you and killing you off.

After we become Christians we aren't finished surrendering to Him. Jesus said we should DAILY take up our Cross and follow Him. The Holy Spirit, who has come and made His home in us, calling us His Temple, will point out more and more things to us that need to go. Attitudes, situations we are involved with, conditions we have, that need to die. We have to surrender them. Let them go. Don't try and cling on to them, picture them being taken to the Cross and nailed there.  When we agreed to make Him Lord, He took us seriously.

Then wait to see what God replaces them with…because God always fills a gap. There are no vacuums in the Kingdom, where there is a space in your life the Holy Spirit rushes in to fill it.

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