THE BEAUTY OF SURRENDER!

When the sun surrenders to the evening the results are breath-taking! Shooting rays of brilliant light; color pallets of oranges, reds, pink, purples, and yellow with perfect brush strokes across a bluish sky. Each sun set a unique presentation of a glorious end to the day. Notice, however, that the display of beauty is the result of surrender. So, it is for each of us; the potential for our magnificent beauty, a display of divine perfection within us, is the result of our choice to surrender, surrender to God, who creates everything with artistic perfection!

Surrender means to yield to, to submit, to give oneself to the power of another. A willing surrender is not possible unless we know and trust the individual to whom we are surrendering. Surrendering our life to the Lord begins, therefore, with knowing His character. We know the character of the Father because we know Jesus (John 14:7-9). Jesus came to show us the Father. Jesus never spoke by His own authority, but He spoke according to what His Father said (John 14:10).

Filled with the Holy Spirit and with power after the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus boldly speaks and confirms the heart of the Father and the purpose for His life and ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel (the good news of Jesus Christ) to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives” (all those held captive by their sinful nature) “and recovery of sight to the blind, to set all at liberty those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity); to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound)” (Amplified Luke 4:18,19).

Jesus was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 61:1,2), and revealing the heart of the Father for humanity, and therefore revealing His heart as well; Jesus shows us that God is love (1 John 4:8-11): Jesus taught His Father’s Word with authority; He forgave sins and offenses; He was compassionate; He healed sickness and disease; He fed the hungry; He raised the dead; He cast out demons; He suffered, was crucified, buried and raised from the dead because we were the joy that was set before Him; He equipped us with His Holy Spirit, gave us His divine fullness, making us a new creation, the old spiritual condition (the sinful man) has passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17). But the display of His glory, like the sun submitting to the day, resulting in a beautiful sunset, requires surrender to a loving God.

Little by little, knowledge by knowledge from the Word of God, we are able to live from our spirits in ever increasing splendor of all that Jesus is. This is how we “take off the old man” and “put on the new man” (Colossians 3:8-10; Ephesians 4:20-24). This miraculous spiritual change has occurred, but we must first know who we are in the spirit and gain knowledge of Him in order to allow our spirit man to dominate our flesh and live from the fullness of our new creation. Then as wayward thoughts or behaviors rise up, we are able to become aware of their descension and put them in their place, casting down all thoughts and imaginations that do not line up with the Word of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). Renewing our minds to the Word, is essential so that we may know who we are in the spirit, what we have, and in God’s strength, to partner with Him to control these things.

Romans 12:1,2 confirms this process: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” This is our surrender! We are living sacrifices. As we are living, that means that we can make decisions to move away from God, away from living from are spirits. Living also would suggest ever changing. This is a process of ongoing change; the old way of thinking or conforming to this world is dying, being sacrificed, as our thoughts are being renewed by the power of the Lord through His Word!

We must understand the completeness of the change that has occurred in us. God’s Word says, we are royal, purchased, special, called, chosen, not by any work of our own, but by the work of Jesus; this is grace (1 Peter 2:9)! The Word says that because we believe these things, we may “set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). In His strength we are able to display the fruit of the Holy Spirit which is His characteristics in us (Galatians 5:22,23).

“You have been crucified with Christ” (your spirit has been crucified) “it is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you;” (Galatians 2:20); “you are a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17)! We must know who we are, conform our mind and our thinking to the Lord’s, ever increasing our knowledge of Him by His Word and spending time with Him. This is a process that requires perseverance, endurance and patience; therefore, we are living sacrifices, surrendered to the Lord with the resulting display of His beauty within us just like a sunset from the surrendering of the sun to the day!