Are You Totally Surrendered?

God is calling us to be in a state of surrender. Total surrender is a process for sure, but being intentional to humble ourselves daily takes an act of us looking within.

Let's just face it. God's way of doing things is not always the way we would do things. Raising our hands in praise and singing that lovely song, "I Surrender All", is easy to do, but it's a totally different discipline to walk out. Recently, I went through a situation that was very hurtful. I mean it was deeply hurtful, and it impacted my emotional and mental state for days. I felt so misunderstood and it was just wrong and undeserved. That made it especially hard to get over as my brain kept trying to make sense of it. But, God spoke to me these words, "Forgive, even when it's not warranted."

Whew! My emotions wanted to stay hurt, angry, and disappointed, but God was challenging me to surrender to Him and trust Him with my heart. He didn't want me to fall back into the trap of guarding my own heart. Surrendering to God doesn't always feel good and it doesn't always look pretty, but we have to trust His sovereignty and that it will all make sense one day. If we truly love Him, we will keep His commandments (John 14:15) and one of those commandments is to love one another. In order to keep His commandment to love one another, we have to totally surrender to Him and allow the Holy Spirit to guide our heart and minds, not our own wills.

We can be right or we can be righteous. We have to make the choice. Jesus was right, but He chose to be righteous as He denied Himself and fulfilled His purpose on the cross, paying the ultimate sacrifice for us. What makes us think that we have the right not to do the same? We also have to take up our cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). Also, in the words of Paul, "I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship (Romans 12:1-2)." Surrender is worship.

God informed us ahead of time in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." So, we're in this thing! He will continue to open our eyes and reveal more and more of Himself and His ways to us daily as we continue to reach out to Him. I encourage you to allow God's ways to fill your heart and your life. We can't totally surrender to His ways without Him.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord, help us to totally surrender to you each day. When we wake up, let our minds be on you and how we can demonstrate your unselfish love to someone else, even to those who have hurt us. We need your Holy Spirit to help us as we intentionally rely on you. We trust you with our hearts, Lord, and we love you. Amen.