"I Surrender All", is a very familiar song that is often played at the end of a church service for an alter call. I wonder if anyone else has had a problem singing this song to God like I have? Now, it does sound good and our emotions can convince we want to surrender all, so we cry out, 'Yes, God. I surrender all to you.' Then, within the next few days, we find ourselves struggling with what we said we surrendered. I got to the point that I did not sing that song when a service would play it. I would try in my own attempt with only failure to show for it. I have since realized that God has never required of me to "surrender all" because He knew I could never do that just by my own will and what I thought surrender was. There was a bigger problem, and only He could take of it.
Surrender means; acceptance of despair, a verbal act of admitting defeat, relinquish to the power of another. Through the Father's wooing love, He helps us to see our need, and draws us to His son, Jesus. In that moment of our despair and acceptance of defeat, and we simply believe, is the moment of our first surrender, and it is the one that is the most important; it is the one that really counts. Why? Because, that old nature, which was the source of the power of sin, had to die permanently. We were all born "in Adam" and at the moment of belief, we are immersed into death with Christ and then raised as a totally new creation, a new person. That old nature is now replaced with the divine nature. We are now,"in Christ." We are given a new heart, a new spirit, and we have the Holy Spirit. Internally, we are fully surrendered to God. Spirit to sprit, we are fully surrendered. Our hearts do desire to do His will. So we do not have a sin nature any longer, what we have is sin habits and habits can be broken.
The problem is that many in the Body of Christ don't realize what all happened at the cross. We focus on the forgiveness which is the blood side of the cross, but rarely focus on the body side of the cross, which is our death and resurrection with Christ. We believe we have two natures, we are still evil and good, and we have to keep crucifying ourselves, and we call it surrender. Well God did that already. He killed us off, at our first surrender. Our sin is no longer an issue to God. He dealt with the problem. So all that is left an unrenewed mindset, and the patterns of the flesh. When our minds are not renewed, the old habits of sin are still there. And that is the surrender God is working on from within us,
We can talk to God about the sins we still are capable of and commit sometimes, but He is always going to deal with your righteousness, because that's who you are. He is going to reveal what's missing in your revelation and experience of Him that keeps you in certain sin habits. Surrendering our minds to the truth of who God say's we are is what is hard. But once we do, then our behavior begins to match who we are on the inside; Holy, blameless, sanctified, justified, and pure. We are sons and daughters of the living God. Now these, truths sure make it much easier to surrender myself to, how about you? There are many lies we have believed, and our lives in this realm will be a process of surrendering our minds to what is already true in the eternal, which is the now moment. It is the true reality and always will be.