Unconditional Surrender
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 6:25
It seems incomprehensible to think that giving up control can bring victory, and yet, it’s the basis of everything that we believe as Christians. Christ provided the perfect example of putting aside His own human will to submit to His Father.
Today was one of the Sundays our church observes the Lord’s Supper. We were encouraged to remember that while the disciples and Jesus were preparing the meal and partaking of it, being thankful for God’s provision, and remembering the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, Christ, Himself, knew the truth. He completely understood that He would soon replace the sacrificial lamb whose blood adorned the doors of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and with His death and resurrection, free every soul that looks to him from our slavery to sin once and for all.
Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and His humanity was on full display as He asked if there was any other way. Fully man and fully God, He knew exactly what He faced in the coming hours, and, He obviously dreaded the pain and degradation He knew was necessary as He bore the sins of the world and took the penalty of our failures on Himself. And yet, in the end, He again showed us the way as He surrendered Himself to the will of His Father.
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. 26:42
Perhaps we read Luke 9:23-24 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. or Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. and think that God is asking too much of us… to give up everything that we are and follow Him whole heartedly. But, when we take a moment to realize that He, in His perfection, came to earth and took on human form to teach us so very much while living a perfect life to become the only acceptable sacrifice for our failures. We, on the other hand, are living a short mortal life that will be followed by an eternity in either Heaven or Hell.
If we are reconciled to Him through salvation, and have an assurance of Heaven, how can we not have a desire to serve Him with our entire being? Perhaps, it’s because we’re afraid of what we’ll be losing. Maybe it’s because we’re afraid of what He will ask of us. One thing is sure, He’s not asking anything of us that He wasn’t willing to do Himself… not even close. And… in the end… we reap all the benefits. He does all the giving.
Are you willing to honestly pray, “Thy will be done.”? We aren’t promised a perfect life, even walking in His will for our lives, but we are promised that living a life fully surrendered to His leadership will result in a life that is more abundant than anything we can imagine while we hang on to our perceived control of this world.
We trust Him with our soul. We trust in our salvation. We’ve confidently placed our eternal destination in his care, and doesn’t it seem likely that we can trust Him with this little human life He’s given us? Being fully surrendered just might feel different from the other side.
