(Excerpted from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing: The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 9)
"Take a moment now to remind yourself of the definition of surrender. See for certain that surrendering is not a negative thing when it comes to your relationship with God. It is the most positive thing you can do. It is also the one discipline that will catapult you into a true love relationship with God. Surrender is giving God possession and power over your will, your desires, your goals and dreams, and your whole heart. It is yielding to Him and His commands. When you surrender in a particular area of your life, in a sinful chamber of your heart, you give up your selfish desire to do as you wish. Surrender is the resignation of your flesh. And that leads you to a place where you can joyfully come under the power and control of the Holy Spirit. Surrender was graphically described to you in the story of Abraham and his altar of death [Genesis 22]. His test of obedience and surrender was a part of his growth in the Lord, and it will be a part of our growth as well.
Second Chronicles 7: 13-14 also points us to surrender as a way of worship. Though it is often quoted on patriotic holidays as a call for our country to turn back to God for revival, these verses are specific to God's Body as well, and maybe even more specific to the individual believer. Read through them and take note of the verbs that the Lord uses as he speaks to us. Notice that they demand action. Pay close attention also to the events and circumstances that surround God's call to us to worship. They are found in verse 13.
If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people . . .
God may be allowing some very difficult circumstances to touch your life. Maybe they are the result of your sin and idolatry. Or maybe they are being allowed simply to bring you to the end of yourself. Either way, our call is the same. We are to surrender to Him."
Where is God requiring your surrender today? Will you hear His call to surrender to Him as an insult to your flesh, as it rises up to have its own way, or will you hear it as a loving invitation to check your flesh at the door and reside in the embrace of your Father?
(More tomorrow in God's Call To Surrender--Part 2)
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