Surrender

So many songs in the Christian world today sing about surrendering it all to God. And those songs always kinda confused me because I thought, "This is a great song and all but seriously, I've already surrendered my life to Him. It's not like I fall away from Him in between every time I sing these songs. What's the point?"

But I had a revelation today that surrendering isn't something that you do at the altar and then you're done. The surrendering that happens when you sing "I surrender" is just a commitment. The real surrendering happens all day, every day, every second of the day. That's the fulfillment of the commitment you made at the altar singing, "I surrender."

It happens through sacrifices. When you are given the choice to think about things that please God or don't, you surrender and choose Him. When you have to choose between sports and church you choose Him. When you have to choose between indulging in your tiredness or sacrificing yourself to go to church you choose Him. When you have to choose between watching TV/playing video games/doing social media and spending time in the Word you choose Him. When you have to choose between hanging with your friends or going home because you haven't done your quiet time yet, you choose Him. You choose Him every time, over everything.

That's surrender.

That's what Jesus meant when He said to die to yourself; to carry your cross.

In Matthew 6:24 Jesus says:
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

In my Bible I've written in after that verse so it reads like this:
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money or image or things or idols or yourself or time or pleasure or your friends."

And the funny thing is, when we choose Him over us, life is better. We think that maybe because we're not doing what we want at the moment and continually choosing what He wants instead, that we're going to be miserable and unhappy. But Jesus is so faithful. Just being with Him becomes a blessing. We go from sacrificing to be with Him because He told us to, to sacrificing to be with Him because we can't get enough of Him!

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boosting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away but the man who does the will of God lives forever."        2 John 2:15-17

"The he said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever who wants to save his life must lose it and whoever loses his life for Me will save it." Luke 9:23-24 (emphasis mine)