Surrendering to God: What Does it Mean?

What is Surrender?

You hear pastors and even other Christians talking about surrendering, but what is it? What does it entail? How does it happen?

For starters, let's go back to when you first heard and received the Gospel, and if you haven't yet, I'd suggest you stop reading now, pick up your nearest Bible, call a pastor, or shoot me an email so that you can hear about the only person that can save your life.

Back to the day of your salvation. That day, you received the gift of salvation, you also declared that Jesus is the Lord of your life. Before then, your master was sin, and your father was the devil (John 8:44). Only now, you have a new Master and Father, but your old master still desires to have control over you.

Now, you're in a war. You can only serve one master, and both desire for you to give them control. Only, one leads to destruction, and one leads to life. You must choose which one you serve.  

So, what is surrender? Well, it's many things, but it can be summed up like this:
You're driving a car that's out of control, but you read somewhere that the only way you can survive is to let the man next to you take the wheel. However, you may have doubts about how well this man can drive because all you can see is the chaos around you. You've heard that he's gotten many people through many difficult situations, though, so you decide to trust him and let him take the wheel.

That's the first part of surrender, giving God the wheel and letting Him do what He needs to do. But let's face it, some of us give God the wheel, but we don't get out of the driver's seat. God can do whatever He wants, but you need to cooperate. If you give Him the wheel, it means you need to also get out of the driver's seat.

Then, sometimes we give God the wheel and the driver's seat, but we still try to tell Him where to go. That's not how it was supposed to be, though.

Surrendering to God's will means that you are giving Him full control and trusting that He knows the very best for you, because He does! It means that if you are tempted to sin, however small it may be, or if you're tempted to go into a situation where you will be tempted to sin, you have to say no. The Bible says to make no provision for the flesh (Romans 13:14), so that means that you listen to the Spirit's guidance so that you're not put in those situations.

Surrender is Not a "One and Done" Thing

But even when you decide to make the choice to surrender, it's not just a one-time choice. You must make the choice to walk in the Spirit and take up your cross daily.

It's a sad thing that many Christians believe that, once you're saved, you can live however you like. But salvation is not about praying a prayer and believing that Jesus exists. You need to make the choice each day to follow Jesus, despite what your situation is.

Another thing is, we can't rely on our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all else (Jeremiah 17:9). Because of that, we cannot rely on our feelings. You can feel something is right, but without truth, wisdom, and acting on what you know to be true, your heart may just be leading you into another sinful trap. The opposite is knowing what is right, but refusing to act upon what you know to be right. James 4:17 tells us that this is a sin.

As I wrote further up in this article, we are in a war. Satan wants to keep you in bondage, even though you're free. He will exploit every weakness you have, whether it's lust, impatience, previous addictions, idolatry, etc. for his advantage over you. Therefore, you need to be walking in the Spirit so that you don't fall into his traps.

Suffering and the Prosperity Gospel

Another common misconception people have is that surrendering to God means that you'll have an easier life (for example, wealth, health, and good relationships). Many professing Christians that buy in to this prosperity gospel are in for a very rude awakening. 

For starters, Jesus never said that the Christian life would be easy. In fact, He said that we would surely suffer persecution for His sake (John 15:18-20). When you read through the book of Acts, you'll find that the early church did, in fact, suffer persecution. But the church kept growing.

If you've ever read Job, you'd remember that Job was an upright and blameless man who feared God. God even said so, Himself! However, Job did not have an easy life. He lost everything in one day: his wealth, his children, and he contracted a disease. His friends said he must've made God angry. His wife told him to curse God and die. Through it all, Job remained faithful, though he'd lost everything and probably would never be in the prosperous position he used to be in again.

What was the point of me telling you about Job? Because Job had surrendered to God, but God allowed him to be tested. Satan had hit everything short of his life. To some, Job would have been justified in blaming God. But Job himself said that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away (Job 1:21). Everything belongs to God, and He allows people to have what they have as He pleases. It doesn't mean that He loves some more than others. In fact, for many people, even the notion of wealth can become a stumbling block in our walk with God. Jesus, Himself, said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven (Mark 10:23-25).

But Your Reward in Heaven will be Great

So, surrendering to God's will doesn't always result in an easy life. In fact, it may result in suffering and persecution. If that's the case, why would we want to follow Christ? Why would we want to submit ourselves to the possibility of rejection from society, persecution, and loneliness that may come as a result?

Well, Jesus has an answer. In Matthew 5:10-12:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:10-12, ESV

And again in 2 Timothy:

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

2 Timothy 3:12, ESV

But through those persecutions, there's also a promise that God will never leave us. In fact, we are called to rely on His Spirit in everything we do. Jesus gave us many words of reassurance, and the one that sticks out to me is John 15:18 and the following verses, in which He tells us that the world hated Him first. Because the world hated Him, the world will hate you. But what good is it to gain the whole world, but lose your soul in the process (Matthew 16:26)?

We are promised a Comforter, a Guide, a Helper, etc. in the Holy Spirit. God Himself said that He would never leave you or forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:8). Jesus also said that nobody will ever snatch you out of the Father's hand. Finally, another verse to hang on to is this:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord

Romans 8:38-39, ESV

Our Greatest Example

We have a perfect example of what surrender looks like: Jesus.

But how is He our example? He surrendered Himself to the Father's will, even up to a death as horrible as the cross (Philippians 2:8). But why?

Let's go all the way back to the start of His ministry. Right after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He went into the wilderness to fast for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-2). The devil, himself, comes to tempt Jesus. But there's something else. Not only does the three things Satan tempted Him with correspond with the things that tempt us everyday (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life), but the second one specifically was to make Jesus claim His glory before His earthly ministry even started, therefore taking away our hope for salvation and, you guessed it, allowing the devil to keep his hold of us.

Jesus had His mission in mind from the start. Even when He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, He followed the Father's will. He wished that He didn't have to suffer being separated from God the Father, who He had enjoyed fellowship with since before the beginning of time. In fact, the thought of being completely and utterly alone was probably what caused Him the most anguish. But, He prayed that the Father's will be done, not His own (Matthew 26:39).

That same night, He was arrested. The next morning, He was beaten, spat upon, nailed to a cross, scorned, and as He felt the sins of the entire world fall on his shoulders, He also felt the close fellowship He'd had with the Father slipping away as God turned his face from His one and only Son.

For Jesus to know what was in store for Him, and yet still go through with it... It just proves how much He loved us and how, even though He is part of the godhead, He was fully surrendered to God.

But, hope wasn't lost. Jesus was resurrected, and He now sits at the right hand of the Father, the very place Satan was trying to make Him take before His ministry could even begin.

If Christ was able to surrender everything so that you could gain it, how much more should you be willing to surrender everything to the one who didn't have to give His life?

Conclusion

I'll share a little bit of my own testimony, now. When I first got saved, I was on fire for God... for about a week or two. I wasn't faithful in my Bible-reading. I didn't know how to pray. I hardly knew anything about what I was supposed to do. I hardly knew anything other than the fact that I was a sinner, Jesus was my only hope, and I had to put and keep my trust in Him.

The result? I spent the next few years in sin, guilty, knowing I was doing wrong, but not knowing how to give it all up. I was about twelve when I got saved and baptized.

When I was sixteen, I became a member of my local church, but nobody knew the thoughts I had or the things I was still doing that I felt so guilty about. By that time, I knew how to pray. I knew how to study my Bible, but those things just weren't a consistent part of my life. But Jesus was an ever-present beacon of hope in my life. He was the thing I always turned back to whenever life got tough.

It wasn't until I finally learned what it was to surrender your life to God that I finally felt free from the sin and guilt that had tried over and over and over again to take control of my life.

I remember that day vividly. I had started studying my Bible more. I was trying to have a better prayer life. I remembered hearing a sermon at church about surrender, and I wasn't sure if I'd done that.

I was sitting on the floor in my room when I decided to surrender my life to God. I asked Him to use me however He wanted to. I told him I'll go where He wants me to go.

I'll admit, though, I still fell into a pattern of sin every now and then. It wasn't until after I broke free from it that I was told that surrender wasn't just a one-time thing. You have to surrender daily. You have to say no to your selfish desires daily. It isn't just "Give us this day our daily bread". It's "God, help me to surrender to Your will daily". 

I've found that in everything God has called me to do so far, I regret none of it. And I can confidently say that, out of those I've met that have given their lives in service to God's will, I haven't once heard anyone say they regret it. Not even those who had to flee a war-torn country.

One last thing I want to share is Galatians 2:20. It's helpful to remind yourself of this one fact everyday:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20, ESV

If you haven't surrendered to Christ yet, I would urge you to do so. As I said before, you won't regret it. In surrender, you will find joy and peace you've never known before, and though there's no promise of prosperity here on earth, you will be laying up treasures for yourself in heaven. But treasures in heaven are nothing compared to the day we all finally get to see the face of the Man that laid His life down so that we might gain it.