Surrender: The Process Of Surrender

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Luke 9:23

John’s wife sarcastically called down from her loft studio, “I see you are watching another one of those Christian movies.”

Actually, John was watching another sizzling sex-packed, profanity-permeated action movie on pay television, one whose seamy scenes would have made people blush twenty-five years ago.

His wife’s comment jolted him like a lightning bolt. He had been a committed Christian for several years, but he still struggled with many areas of his life which he had presumed would self-correct after his initial surrender to Christ.

John realized his wife had unearthed another unguarded, unexamined area of his life which was unsurrendered. He could cancel his pay television, but he still wondered how he could be a Christian and continue to have so many blindspots.

Surrender is a daily task. “‘If anyone would come after me, he must…take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23, emphasis added). There is a moment of surrender and a process of surrender.

The Moment Versus the Process

The moment of surrender is the surrender of the will to personal belief in Jesus, that He is the crucified Savior who forgives sin. It is the moment of faith. It happens in an instant of time.

The process of surrender is the lifelong, daily crucifying of the human will—the will of the flesh—over and over and over again. It is surrender and resurrender and re-resurrender. It is a process because we surrender our will at the foot of the Cross, but then we take it back up again.

The will of the flesh is an ugly ogre, a toady troll. He lurks in the shadows of every decision. His lackeys inject themselves like poisons into the stream of our conscious thoughts. Jesus said, “‘For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly’” (Mark 7:21-22).

Because of the will of the flesh, we must participate in continual, daily surrender. It is to yield, to submit, to abandon to Christ, and to do so every day. It is to relinquish our right to have our own way, and to do so daily. It is on-going conversion to daily obedience.

Conversion does not take place in the blinking of an eye. Conversion occurs on a time line. Let’s face it, if we knew everything about ourselves that God wanted to change, we would blow all our circuit-breakers. We couldn’t handle knowing how God sees us all at once. We are converted to salvation in a moment of time, but our conversion to obedience is a lifelong process of daily surrender. “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

A Thinking Surrender

To surrender does not mean that we surrender our minds, but our wills. To surrender the will does not mean to resign the intellect. On the contrary, the sharpened mind aids the process of surrender. It is the thinking mind which examines itself. Only thinking people advance themselves, either toward self-interests or surrender. The active mind penetrates the depths for truth while the dull mind wallows in puddles of shallow thinking.

While some Christians are eager to be fully converted, the tendency is to linger with the old ways. The inertia of the existing lifestyle is the adversary of total surrender. Before believing in Christ, we spent all our energies to build a comfortable, prosperous life. It is painful to admit our own errors, so we let the old lifestyle linger.

Christ may or may not ask you to change your lifestyle, but He does command you to surrender it to Him daily. “‘He must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” Where is Jesus going that He wants you to follow Him? Are you in His footsteps?

Do you want to follow Jesus? Do you want to live a life of full, total, complete surrender to Christ? Then you must deny the will of the flesh. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Take up your cross daily, crucifying afresh the ugly ogre of your selfish desires. If anyone would come after Him, these things he must do. Every other path leads to unsurrender.

Never hold out in an area that Jesus reveals unsurrendered. To hold out scuffles with the process of surrender. We are converted to faith in a moment of surrender, but we are converted to obedience over a lifetime by surrendering afresh each day. First comes the moment of surrender, then the process of surrender. “‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23).

I SURRENDER

Father, I confess that my existing lifestyle has created an inertia against proceeding toward a full surrender. I desire to advance with You, Lord, to complete the process of surrender. Today I deny myself, take up my cross, and follow You. Show me where You are going. Empower me with the Holy Spirit to surrender myself to You each and every day. I want to live a life characterized by obedient surrender. Amen.