Surrender

We had a night of worship Tuesday, the topic was surrender. The Christian life is all about surrender and repentance we indeed have to put to death the deeds of the body and live holy for Christ.

However I find myself getting stuck with a legalistic approach with this, I’ll obsess over killing sin to the point that I forget Christ it seems like. Ah my conscience is so terror stricken because when I do fall the beating I have to endure is so painful.

Sin utterly ruins me and at times I can’t even discern if something I did was sinful or not. Nevertheless there’s been times I fell and I’m so stricken in my mind that I fall into despair and I’ll sleep all the way until work and go about all the day groaning and downcast.

So I walk this thin line of holistic living (God is my witness I’m not boasting in myself!) but simply seeking for Jesus to be glorified in my life as a living sacrifice.

“Therefore let no sin reign in your mortal bodies.”

This life of surrender is a constant of putting off the flesh and seeking The Lord. When The Carpenter asks us to put away something we do well to listen. Last year I had backslidden and was spending countless hours gaming like I use to and I heard the conviction that I needed to put it away.

But in my foolish heart I tarried like Lot did when the angles told him to leave Sodom and Gomorra since they were about to destroy it so my condition grew more and more miserable. I was so absorbed I had to cry out for The Lord to Turn my eyes from worthless things!

By Gods Grace and His Spirit He made me lose the desire to play even though I didn’t want to, I’m such a fool to disobey God willingly and presumptuous. Nevertheless He was faithful, there was liberty and joy found in me surrendering that idol.

As Rachael stole the idols from her father Labans house and when he tried to look for them when he chased down Jacob after he fled Rachael sat on top of the idols on a camels saddle with the excuse that she was on her period when her father asked for her to get up and search.

This sounds strange to our western mind; when a woman was in her cycle in ancient middle eastern culture she was considered unclean and if her father would’ve been made unclean if she would’ve got off the saddle since he would’ve touched the saddle in order to search

She manipulative the cultural and religious backgrounds of her people to deter her father from finding these idols. These dumb man made objects that can’t talk nor see, she did all this to keep these idols. It could be see saw them as a protective charm and couldn’t let go of her households pagan practices. Though later God would command for these idols to be removed (Genesis 35:2)

As believers we may laugh or find this story weird but we are no different than Rachael, when we play the harlot and cheat on God with idols in our life we will do anything to justify our actions even manipulate and scheme.

When I was holding onto the gaming I would come up with all kinds of arguments in my head that my time spent gaming for hours on end was justifiable whenever I was personally convicted and I knew God was calling me to put it away because He has much for me to do and wants little to no distractions.

“Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

So we must surrender to The Lord, are we stronger than Him? Shall we provoke Him to jealousy by serving false gods? We might not be physically worshipping idols like Zeus and Athena like they did in Ancient Rome.

However we will bow down to our tv’s and gaming consoles and our phones and pay sacrifices to them. Namely our time, we are all on borrowed time and that’s what keeps me convicted when running this race, call me a fool but I take The Word of God literal. As Jesus said about surrender concerning sin;

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭29‬-‭30‬ ‭

I’ve known brethren to hold so tightly to different doctrines that it takes the teeth of passages like this we can seem to skim over: “well there’s something I need to get rid of but he’ll forgive me.”

That’s a scary place to be brethren, why even take the chance? You might but I won’t and by His grace He didn’t even let me! And it’s my prayer you don’t play with sin.

Let’s lay down our lives for Jesus and run onward to this race stripping off all the sins that cling to us so easily.

Concerning mentally it seems stable right now and I’m just holding onto it, how I feel doesn’t change how God is. I know He’s unchanging, if I had one wish that would be to never doubt my salvation again and to have sweet communion with Jesus.

There’s days I feel more loathsome and dirty than a-road killed animal. Yet on others where God is my Light and Guide feeling washed with the blood of The Lamb and I walk with my head held high, not in myself but boasting in my God.

So if I can just pull my eyes off my failures and sin and look to Jesus and have faith that He’s forgiven me of my faults and won’t bring them to an account on judgement day since He payed for it at the cross my mental state would be steady and I would be unmovable.

However like Peter when I get out the boat and I’m walking on the water I see the waves of The Law on one side and my sin on the other and I start to sink. But in my unbelief Jesus grabs me and pulls me up instantly, though it may not feel like it He truly does it.

I feel renewed, I need to put away childish things and be a man. Eternity is at stake, I have been dwelling on how many souls are actually lost, men suppress the truth in unrighteousness and it grieves my heart. What can be known about God is plain to them, I was able to talk to this guy working at the gas station I asked what he was going to do when he was off and he said place NCAA Football I then asked him if he believes in Jesus and he said: “kinda”

I asked how you get to heaven and he said by being good, I thought there was a customer behind me so I did not get to explain much but I said if we are judged by the 10 commandments when we die we are basically doomed and need Jesus, he looked puzzled and I could tell he was irritated.

My heart was grieved and I saw myself in him, He looked about 19 or 20 and it made me think back at that age (Im 26 now) God wasn’t in my thoughts and sin was at the forefront of my mind and like him after work I would’ve got on my Playstation and played all night and then go through the futile cycles of waking up for work the next day and doing it all over again. And if someone were to try and share me the gospel I would think they are “Judging me” or some legalistic fanatics

I recall when I was working at the ymca when I was around 22 or 23 and a now beloved brother that I am so grateful at the time was praying for me when I was lost. He passed me by one time at my job and said he is praying for me and I looked at him with a puzzled irritated look and scoffed in my mind about it and told my friend about it later that day thinking I didn’t need prayer for anything. When man in confronted about sin and judgment its the last thing he wants to hear and its not an easy task but how can they be saved if they never hear?

My greatest concern in America is the millions of professing believer’s that call on the name of Christ but aren’t saved and He will say Depart From Me I Never Knew You on that last Day that the patriarch’s of old called: THE DAY OF THE LORD. They have a form of godliness but their lifestyle denies the power of it, I would say the average person says to get to heaven is by being good enough or going to church which neither of these things save you. What saves you is Faith in Christ and repentance of sin will be overflow of your salvation through the washing of The Holy Spirit.

So you have a people that are stubborn and hardheaded that have been raised and church and heard the gospel since they were babes but when you call them into an account that the fruit of their life does not align with scripture of someone being saved you are perceived as a tyrant. Although I cant blame them because as I mentioned concerning my story with the brother from the ymca I did the same thing.

If an evangelist walked up to me when I was lost and expounded on how drunkards and the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of heaven I would think he was out of his mind, however if He would’ve mentioned the depart from me I never Knew you Verse that would’ve grabbed my heart, the Word of God is Living and Active. That verse that drove me to the brink of madness and suicide and despair of life played a key role in my salvation though it was so bitter.

We cannot get discouraged from how someone responds to evangelism immediately, The Spirit of God is working at all times although people can resist it unfortunately. Ah what I am saying is we must share the gospel people will hate you and malign you and speak evil of you but this is to be expected.

We must not only preach but love the lost as well, as Spurgeon talked about if you want to drive out all other worries get love for the lost. Men who reject Christ will be utterly damned forever, we cannot forget this fact it is bitter and upmost repulsive but its true. Nevertheless men are without excuse! God crushed His Own Son at The Cross so we can be saved. He has layed all our sin unto Him.

The demons dont get another chance, when they fell with satan there was no hope for them, in fact The Lake of Fire was never meant for humans but for demons. But if people insist on rejecting Christ and following the devil God has no choice, I found various research on the internet concerning statistics on how many believers actually share their faith but I it was all over the place.

The Word “Christian” is thrown around so much that it almost grieves me, meaning just about anyone will profess Christ but live a life practicing sin which the child of God does not do. Thats what I use to do I was deceived and ignorant. Jesus said few there be that find eternal life and that text does indeed make me tremble, the gate is wide enough for ANYONE to enter but narrow meaning the cost of following Jesus, indeed many will try to enter but wont be able to. These peoples eyes have grown dim and their ears have grown dull, always learning yet never coming to the knowledge of The Truth. All the sermons and evangelism rejected in Gods persuit of trying to save their soul only adding to their level of condemnation. I tears my heart to shreds and angers me because the culprit is The devil as he blinds the minds of unbeliever’s.

So with this said we must share the gospel, and if you are reading and don’t know Jesus He will gladly receive you and will change you. Christianity is not about keeping rules its about a restored relationship with God. Knowing all this I truly don’t want to eternally perish.

Yes and amen, whoever doesn’t love The Lord let him be accursed.