Sweet Surrender, All We Were Meant To Be!

We were created and designed for worship and to have a relationship with a Holy God! Our lives were created to be put under His Lordship. If we don’t surrender to Him, we will surrender to something or someone: our own desires (making ourselves our own god) or to substitute other idols such as money, position, career, things, alcohol, drugs, lusts, you fill in the blank! Worship was built into us, we were created for worship; even, archaeologists have recognized this through the relics of time ~ man was created to worship, to seek after God. These other options will not suffice, but only bring chaos and the lack of contentment. God was meant to complete us! A life surrendered to God finds peace, it becomes all God meant it to be ~ a life of purpose is found in God, alone.

Religion is man’s way to God. That’s when we decide what we want to believe about god and what we choose to believe will appease him. Anyone can create a religion. This is man’s desire to be in control, he's choosing to be god, by controlling what he wants his god to be and require of him. People have chosen idols throughout man’s existence on this earth. Idols of wood, silver and gold ~ made by man, yet they do not speak, they have no voice; they were made by man, himself and then he turns to bow down to it. This is foolishness! Sorry, but that requires far more faith than I am able to muster!

Christianity is God’s way to man! It’s God in control, God being God and telling man what's required to please Him. God gives man his purpose! God created man and woman to have an intimate and personal relationship with Him. Adam and Eve walk in the garden with God in the cool of the day and they were His friends. When Adam and Eve sinned, they broke His requirements. Adam and Eve's response was to hide from God because sin destroys our desire to be close to Him, it breaks that intimate relationship. Adam and Eve were created in God's image, but now we are born into sin, in Adam's likeness. We are all sinners; God says the penalty of sin is death! God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins, to bridge the gap!

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father, but by me.” 

God’s way to man is through His Son Jesus Christ. God’s way, is simple, man cannot do anything to get to heaven, himself, it by grace, through faith, alone.  Jesus did it all, He met God's requirements for us; all we have to do is believe, to accept that Jesus died, for our sins, in our place. God declares us righteous and we can walk, continually, in that grace! There is no sin that God’s grace cannot cover, when we choose to place our sin at the cross of Christ. Our willingness to come to God on His terms is simple and sweet surrender! Surrender releases us to enjoy a personal, loving relationship with an intimate, but Holy God! Is that awesome or what?

The priests of the Old Testament prepared themselves for hours just to enter into God’s presence, which they did with trembling and fear. Because of what Jesus did on the cross we can enter His Presence on any day, at any hour! 

Matthew 27:51 says about the veil in the temple,

“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. “ Jesus' death on the cross gave us access to the Throne of Grace! From that moment on, man has had direct access to the Holy of Holies!

We don’t lose in surrendering ourselves to God; but, the opposite, we, actually, gain all we were created to be ~ we fulfill God's designed purpose. Otherwise, we are only speculating what He created us for, trying to be something we're not, or fulfilling someone else's desire and dreams for us.  Surrendering to God is letting God be God, letting Him take complete control of our life. It's letting go of all our wants, dreams and pursuits and letting Him show us what we were meant to be, what He created us for. It's not arguing or struggling against Him, but, simply, trusting, following and obeying! God calls us to be a "living sacrifice," which He calls our "spiritual act of worship."Every sacrifice gives up its life, but God calls us to be a "living sacrifice," we are to surrender our life for His purposes and plans. Surrendering, requires giving our life up, over again with each new day, moment by moment! We may have to surrender 50 times in one day, continually, moving against self desire to realign ourselves with His will, as He directs our steps! God became displeased, after a while, that He made man, there was so much sin on the earth and He considered ending all life! Noah's righteous life changed God's mind! God told Noah His plan to destroy all life and instructed Noah to build a boat, the ark. Noah followed God's instructions, completely. It took Noah 120 years to accomplish this task, but Noah obeyed God, day after day, without question. Noah laid down His life, to fulfill God's will, God's purpose for Noah's life. We are here today, because Noah surrendered his life to God's plan and built a boat in the middle of a dusty, dry desert, when it made no sense to do so! If you're thinking, "What kind of life is that, to spend 120 years building a boat?" It's a humble life, a willingness to be used in a God sized way to fulfill God's God size plan! God used Noah's life to save mankind  and animals from being nonexistent! That's really huge! Moses, (after some argument), did finally, choose to surrender to God's plan and returned to Egypt to lead God's chosen nation out of slavery, obeying all God said. Abraham left his home and his own dreams to fulfill God's plan's to lead God's chosen people to the place God had chosen for them. Joshua, followed God in taking the promised land as their possession. What about David, Gideon, Jehoshaphat? As long as they walked in surrender, God blessed their lives and did He did God sized things through them! My heart cries out to God for His people sitting in the pews! We have grown so, aimlessly, distracted by so MANY things; we are running in circles and weary. We can't do it all, we were never meant to! God doesn't give us more than we can do, we do! Everyone is demanding of our time and there's not enough of us to go around! Our constant demands can leave us short of time to meet with God! We're too busy! But I'd like to suggest, that we're too busy not to meet with God! When we meet with God each morning, we can ask Him what's important. God will simplify our day! When we take time to worship Him, to go to bed earlier, and rise early to meet with Him, we can surrender our day, our schedule to His will. He will not overload us! God will shorten our to do list and will act on our behalf, rearranging our day and helping us accomplish HIS will. In God's hands, our schedule is His to manage; people will cancel and He will reorder our day to meet His perfect will. His ways are not burdensome; His yoke is easy and His burden is light! God intends for our lives to be filled with His Presence and power, not burden down with anxiety and stress! If we choose to let God reorder our world and our lives and others will feel His impact! To do God's will, will require giving up what we want to do and doing some things we don't want to, but there is peace and many blessings along the way!  Worship isn't just prayer and praise, it's a life surrendered! Worship doesn't stay in worship, it changes us, it goes with us, we live in it and He will be seen in us by others. Our lives will be a "living testament," possibly, the only Bible some have ever read! Surrender begins on our knees ~ but full surrender never gets up, it continues to bowed down to HIS LORDSHIP! Surrender, moves beyond self, to selflessness! Surrender, is a a life laid down, in humility, and made available to God to save a lost world! It's a daily choice that's made each minute of every day! Surrender is resting in His arms, doing His will, not our own! If we don't surrender to God, we will surrender to something else! "For I know the plans I have for you," declare the Lord, "plans not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 The world teaches us to be independent, to take our life, the bull by the horns and whip it into shape ~ we're told we can be anything we want to be, but we were designed to be, completely, dependent, to be a "living sacrifice" in the hands of the Living God, this is our spiritual act of worship!