THE KEY TO THE VICTORIOUS LIFE.
I was wonderfully born again just a few weeks after my tenth birthday (over 67 years ago) It was an unforgettable experience, and I have never doubted I had passed from death unto life, and had received the Gift of eternal life. I am the product of an unhappy alcoholic home, and despite my circumstances my life has never been the same since. Sadly, as I have shared numerous times I am not aware of any discipleship or follow up, I did continue to attend that Sunday School class where it happened until we moved away from that area.
So like so many new Believers sadly, although I never doubted I was born again, there was plenty of defeat and discouragement in my life, that continued for quite a few years.
The truth, that I consider so important that should be shared with a new Believer immediately, and continually shared until it becomes a revelation and a lifestyle is the essential matter of CONTINUED SURRENDER. That it is impossible to live a victorious Christian life unless, we are CONTINUALLY AFFIRMING that Jesus is:
The Lord of our life
The Boss over us
The Master
The Ruler
The King
The Owner over our lives.
The Apostle Paul makes it so clear in Romans 12:1-2 AMP. I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].
The MESSAGE EXPRESSES IT THIS WAY: So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Here Paul is pleading (begging) the Roman Christians to constantly surrender their bodies to God, perhaps he was speaking out of painful experience, that SURRENDER IS THE KEY TO A HOLY LIFE. In our pre conversion days, the influences were very much from without, that is the environment in which we live, plus our sinful nature within, and the attitudes that had been built up over years in our mind, but as we yield to God more and more our minds are renewed, and the Kingdom Lifestyle begins to develop in us.
Paul uses the same language in Romans 6:13-14 NKJV And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Paul again says PRESENT YOUR BODY, YOUR MEMBERS) (AS IN 12:1) if you don’t then your body will be an INSTRUMENT OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, that will be used by your sinful nature, and the evil one to sin, but if we surrender continually to the Lord, SIN SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER US, Hallelujah.
Paul continues in verse 13 and challenges us to surrender to God (continually) so that we are an INSTRUMENT OF RIGHTEOUS TO GOD..
Each time recently as I have prayed and reaffirmed Christ’s Lordship over my li e 4 things have to come to my mind, and I want to share them here today.
- I want my body to be an INSTRUMENT in the Hand of God for Him to use me in any way He sees fit, for me to a blessing to as many people as possible.
- I want my body to be a CHANNEL, and that flowing out of my life will be touch, and bless and encourage t God’s people.
- I want to be a VESSEL (continually) Filled with the Holy Spirit Ephesians 5:18-19 NKJV And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Also a VESSEL OF HONOUR 2 Tim 2:21 NKJV He will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.
- I want to be a REFLECTOR of the grace and goodness of God, that people SEE JESUS IN ME.
Although I was personally so slow to come to this awesome understanding of the total importance of constant surrender, with the Lord’s help and grace, that is my heart’s desire.
I trust this teaching will bless and encourage you, and that to be surrendered is not just information to you, but REVELATION, and together we will seek to lay still on the altar of sacrifice.
