Absolute Surrender
Absolute Surrender. My spirit is willing, it is something I desire, but my flesh is so so very weak. I take comfort in the truth Jesus taught in Luke 18:27, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
Romans 7:18 says, "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not." I too feel torn between the desire of my heart and the war in my flesh for my actions. In my frustration which has come from failing so many times, from failing every time and falling short with every effort and good intention- I turned to God and in turn read a wonderful and heart changing book by Andrew Murray entitled Absolute Surrender.
Through Murray, God spoke straight to my heart and conflictedness. On page 80-81 he says, "The will of man is nothing but an empty vessel in which the power of God is to be made manifest... God allows that failure so that the regenerate man should be taught his own utter inability."
I never clearly understood the truth that it is in my weakness that I am the strongest in the Lord. Murray goes so far as to say on page 114, "The great hindrance to trust is self-effort... If you will bow down in nothingness and wait on God, He will become all. As long as we are something, God cannot be all. His omnipotence cannot do its full work. That is the beginning of faith- utter despair of self, a ceasing from man and everything on earth and finding our hope in God alone."
This brings a whole new light and depth of understanding to the many scriptures that talk about how God is close to the humble and broken hearted (Psalm 34:18), how God gives grace to the humble (Psalm 3:34), and the reason to humble yourself before the Lord so He can lift you up (James 4:10). I knew it was a good thing to be humble- but I saw it more as something that affected my life in the world- not my spiritual walk. I never saw how my own self-effort and pride could hinder the power of God so much in my life until I read this book.
I am now beginning to understand my deep need to pray for humility- for the power of the Holy Spirit to come and help me to recognize my need to cry out as Paul did in Romans 7:24-25, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Praise God that there is such a great and glorious hope- such a magnificent and unending power. I want the wisdom to accept that power, the power described in Ephesians 3:20, "By His mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." Exceeding power is available to me in abundance- freely given through Christ by the Holy Spirit.
I know I need to pray for grace to die to self. I have a choice. I must choose: deny self or deny Christ- there is no lukewarm answer. The severity of God's desire to be either hot or cold is very real. Deny self or deny Christ.
What is it to deny self? It is faith in Christ; utter helplessness in self. It is coming to the end of myself which is the beginning of Christ. It is realizing, as Paul had so realized, that I am the worst of sinners and that apart from Christ I am nothing but a mere worm! Dying to self is absolute surrender, surrender of our own feeble efforts. "You cannot stir up faith from the depths of your heart. Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ (Murray 118)."
How often do I ask God to bless my feeble efforts instead of refusing to go unless He goes before me? Too often! I confess I am guilty of what Murray describes on page 72, "Some of us want God to give us a little help while we do our best, instead of coming to understand what God wants, and to say: I can do nothing. God must and will do all."
How often do I try my best and settle for just a little of God's help? Is it that I do not want to inconvenience Him? Afterall, He does have a whole universe to take charge of! Well, it's impossible to inconvenience Him- He wants me to trust Him. That is His message and call all through out His inspired word: 'Come and let Me show you My power and love; trust Me and let Me empower and love you.'
Jesus said in John 15:5, "Apart from me you can do nothing!" Nothing, absolutely nothing- so why do I keep trying?!? He does not say that apart from me you can't do a lot or apart from me you will get tired and frustrated. No, instead He says, 'Wait on me and I will renew your strength (Isaiah 40:31), come to me all you who are weary (Matthew 11:28), because I know that apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Do not waste your time trying- trust me and let me will and do for I have showed you through my servant Paul in Philippians 2:13, "God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.".'
It is not me, it is not my power, my working or my doing. Instead, it is quite the contrary and quite clear in Paul's letter to the Philippians that it is God- both to will and to do. He gives me the desire and the ability. Apart from Him I can do nothing. This is humility in its truest form. This is what it is to deny self.
This all can seem so overwhelming but I know even those feelings are good for they lead me to the end of myself which leads to the beginning of Christ. This is where I need to be- desperate for the power of the Holy Spirit to come and empower me. For it is only by His Spirit that I can do this. I must look to Him. This is a daily, moment by moment gaze into His face. Denying self,- looking away from my self, is following Christ and looking to Him.
"If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen just as they did with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God." (Galations 3:3-6, Message)
Christ was the ultimate example of absolute surrender. He said just before his sacrificial death in John 17:19, "I give myself entirely to you so they also might be entirely yours." What surrender! What love! "Listen to Him say: I am the vine; I will receive you. I will draw you to Myself; I will bless you. I will strengthen you; I will fill you with My Spirit. I, the Vine, have taken you to be My branches. I have given myself utterly to you; children, give yourselves utterly to Me. I have surrendered Myself as God absolutely to you. I became man and died for you that I might be entirely yours. Come and surrender yourselves entirely to be mine." (Murray 138)
So as we have seen, God gives us the desire and the power to surrender. But there is one more important truth. God maintains the surrender. As we live by faith- utter despair of self- God maintains our surrender. It is not until we can confess and realize that in our own human weakness it is impossible to live in absolute and constant surrender before God- that what is impossible with man is possible with God-for with God all things are possible (Luke 1:37).
Trust Him in humility to maintain and empower your absolute surrender. Whatever it may be- He can do it. What ever it is that seems impossible to let go of and to trust Him with- let it go and trust Him. The greatest hindrance to trust is self-effort. Deny self instead of denying Christ the ability to be your source. By His Spirit you have all the power you need for life and godliness. Humility is looking to Him instead of self. True humilty draws all attention to Christ and away from self.
We have this assurance in 2 peter 1:3, "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." It is in now way of us or by our own effort. No! He has given us everything we need out of His goodness. We must come to Him and trust Him and deny self! He will maintain our surrender as we come to Him in faith- utter helplessness of self. He has given us everything we need. He is everything we need.
So let my prayer be: "Oh wretched man that I am, that I might fully understand how truly feeble my efforts and attempts are. Help me to die to self and to trust you with my all. Until I become nothing You can not become all. I want you to be all. I want to live in absolute surrender to You and Your will. Empower me now by your Holy Spirit to do what is impossible with man!"
What is it that is holding you back? I can think of a whole list of things that are hindrances to me. Murray nails it for me on page 135-136, "Oh we find he Christian life so difficult because we seek God's blessing while we live in our own will. We desire to live the Christian life according to our own liking. We make our own plans and choose our own work" Then, we ask the Lord to bless it, to bless our efforts and plans. I even go as far as to be disappointed when He does not bless them. My friends, this must change. I must learn the importance of absolute surrender before absolute disappointment takes over my life!!!
God is showing me that He is much bigger than my plans or my scripts that I could ever write for my life. I praise Him that He is not satisfied to allow me to live in what I desire and dream up. I praise Him for letting me experience disappointment for it is through that disappointment that He shows me grace. Grace to let me instead learn to trust Him and rely on Him. Grace to learn what it is to deny self and follow Christ. Grace to live in His fullness.
As is quite obvious, my life has not gone anyway as I had planned or imagined it would go. AJ's death was a major rip apart from my script. It was so huge that I knew no human effort on my behalf would surfice in accepting it, so I simply did not try but instead let God and in that He's given me amazing abundant grace to surrender it to Him and let Him carry me.
The bigger test for me has proven to be in my daily life- in trusting God with the smaller things. I almost became lazy with these things since I had relied so much on Him to carry my intense grief. There was so much I was holding back from Him. What I thought was surrender was far from it. This became evident as I was allowed to experience disappointment. I praise God for this disappointment for it is through it that I am being lead to Christ- to trust and to surrender- which I know leads to life- every good, perfect and pleasing gift- abundant life, life in fellowship with Christ.
After AJ died and my script was abruptly changed, I immediately but yet unintentionally wrote a new script to replace that which was ruined and made impossible. I had a plan for what my life would look like and how God would redeem my life. I covered it all in spirituality- but that could not hide my fingerprints that were all over it. I tried through my own feeble efforts and attempts to bring about my own redemption story, to no avail- by the grace of God. He loves me too much to let me settle for my own plan. For as He so rightly says in Isaiah 55:9, "For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
I am struck by the fact in Jeremiah 29:11, a familiar verse which says, "For I know that plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope," that assurance is taken in the fact that God knows exactly what His plans are for us, not that we know exactly what those plans are. Beyond that, and more importantly, it is His plans that are good, it is His plans that He is talking about, not our own. We can only have this assurance as we surrender to His plans.
After another disappointment I was broken and finally in a place God needed me to be- the end of myself- a place I need to remain if I am to live in the power of His Spirit. I cried out to God from this place. His answer was a loving rebuke found in 1 Samuel 12. I will close with sharing how through 1 Samuel God is bringing me victoriously through a season of disappointment and discontentment.
The Israelites went to Samuel, their Judge, whom the Lord had appointed and said, in 1 Samuel 8:19-20, "Even so, we still want a king. We want to be like the nations around us." This request grieved Samuel, so he took it to the Lord. God replied in verse 7, "For it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don't want me to be their king any longer."
God had faithfully provided for them all that they needed. But they were not satisfied. They wanted to be like all the other nations around them. They were discontent and asked God for more, in doing this they grieved God and rejected His plan for them. They were in essence saying, 'you are not enough for us, give us a king for that is what we think we need. We need to be like everyone else around us.' They cared little for God's plan and what He desired for them. They were comparing themselves to those around them istead of to God in doing this they found themselves discontent and lacking.
God in His love granted their request, but He surely did not leave it at that. He had higher plans of teaching them and perfecting them through it, through their sin. In 1 Samuel 12: 12-13 it says, "But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Ammon, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you, even though the Lord your God was already your king. All right, here is the king you have chosen. Look him over. You asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request."
This is interesting, it was out of fear that they distrusted God. God had clearly provided all they needed- for He was their king. It is a hard statement He makes when He says, 'you asked for him.' I do not want that to be the way God grants my requests. I can almost hear a hint of sarcasm in His tone. 'YOU asked for him- this is YOUR plan, this is what YOU wanted, but know it is not pleasing to Me, it is not what I desired for you- but YOU asked for him so here he is, here is your 'king' YOU thought YOU needed.' This is a lot to chew. It shows the need of living in absolute surrender with my prayers and the requests I make of God.
In verse 20-22, God gives comfort and assurance, "Don't be afraid, Samuel reassured them. You have certainly done wrong but make sure now that you worship the Lord with all your heart and that you don't turn your back on him in any way. Don't go back to worshipping worthless idols that cannot help or rescue you- they really are useless! The Lord will not abandon his chosen people, for that would dishonor his great name. He made you a special nation for himself."
There is comfort here. There is forgiveness even when we reject God and His plan. How often do I think that whatever it is I am so desiring today will help me or rescue me or bring contentment or happiness or safety? How often do I see my limited plan as my saving grace and redemption instead of realizing that I already have a king- I already have a redeemer?
Our 'king' that we desire can look different and be called many different names. Anything that draws us and our attention away from God and His goodness can be a 'king.' Anything that we think will bring joy and contentment and peace besides Christ can become a 'king'- something we think we need, something that seperates us from God by turning out gaze away from Him.
I do not need to chase after those things I so desire but yet do not have- for God knows what I need. He is what I need. If I needed more He'd surely provide it. Even when I reject Him and His plans He will not abandon me. It is all for His glory-for the honor of His great name, for His fame. He has made me especially for Himself.
So here is the punchline for me: Through all my discontentedness and disappointment, through the hours I have spent making my requests known to God for my plan, for my 'king' these words nullify it all and bring me straight to the heart of God- right where He wants me, close to His bosom. 1 Samuel 12:24, "But be sure to fear the Lord and sincerely worship him. Think of all the wonderful things he has done for you."
That to me is the end to all disappointment, discontentment and frustration. If I worship Him sincerely as I was created to do this brings Him honor and draws my attention and focus off of myself and onto Him. As I think of all the wonderful things He has done for me it is impossible not to overflow with gratitude. For the wonderful things He has done for me surpasses the number of the grains of sand on the beach!!! As I ponder His goodness to me I am content. I am right where He wants me to be. Joy overflows. This is how I can rejoice in the Lord always(Philippians 4:4).
Absolute surrender leads to absolute joy which comes only from an absolute God!
I love His loving conviction that draws me closer to Him. I love that He gives me the power both to will and to do- this power must and does come only from Him!!! I want to live in absolute surrender to Him- that includes my plans and my desires being surrendered unto Him- to His ways and His plans. This is when He can give me the desires of my heart: when His desires become my desires. That can only happen through absolute surrender. Absolute surrender can only happen absolutely by Him and in the power of His Holy Spirit. Deny self and follow Christ.
"God help me to live in absolute surrender!" This is abundant life in Christ. This is knowing the power of the Holy Spirit. This is true joy. "For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking (worldly things), but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17)."
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 7:24-25
posted by Kellie # 7:49 PM
