THE SURRENDERED LIFE
No true Believer will ever forget that glorious day when the Holy Spirit drew them to that place where they confessed their sin and repented, and the result was they were BORN AGAIN. We can say with the Apostle Paul 2 Tim.1:12 NKJV For I KNOW whom I have believed and am PERSUADED that He is able to KEEP what I have committed to Him until that Day.
In hindsight, we can sure see that was just the beginning of an awesome journey, if they (we) had a buddy (someone who walked with them) they quickly found out that the next step, was to MAKE JESUS THE CONSTANT LORD OF THEIR (OUR) LIFE. This is an important aspect of Biblical Discipleship.
The great South African Minister Rev, Andrew Murray, so well known for his teaching and writings on the “inner” or “deeper” life stated:
ENTIRE SURRENDER TO JESUS IS THE SECRET TO PERFECT REST.
Paul writing to the Romans in 12:1 NKJV impressed upon them I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you PRESENT your BODIES a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
AMP. N.T. 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.
NLT I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
PASSION Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.
MESSAGE 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.
Paul used the Greek present continuous tense, saying this must be our hourly, daily, constant re-affirmationt that Jesus is ruling in our lives, we otherwise quickly learn if we are not laying on the altar in surrender, then our old nature can rise up, and cause us to sin, and we lose the joy of our Salvation.
Paul uses this same tense in Eph. 5:18 NKJV 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.
PASSION be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And your hearts will overflow with a joyful song to the Lord Jehovah. Keep speaking to each other with words of Scripture, singing the Psalms with praises and spontaneous songs given by the Spirit! Always give thanks to Father God for every person he brings into your life in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And out of your reverence for Christ be supportive of each other in love.
MESSAGE Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Praise and Worship and thanksgiving are integral keys to maintaining the Spirit filled life.
It is so interesting Paul says that submission/Surrender must be on the horizontal as well as the vertical if we are to live the Spirit filled life.
Confessing the Word of God including the Psalms is another essential key to living the Spirit filled life.
Only as we learn to hourly, daily, constantly surrender to the Lord and let Him “keep filling the house (our body) will we learn to walk in victory and purity and holiness.
The proof we are filled with the Spirit, is the evidence that Jesus is the Lord of our life and by His grace we are seeking to live in obedience and walk and move in the Holy Spirit then I am sure people will see Jesus in us.
We have mentioned numerous times that statement, The problem with a living sacrifice is that it is always wanting to crawl of the altar, it is not a simple thing to learn to live the surrendered life, as we have to contend with our sinful nature and the evil one, who ever goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, The indwelling Holy Spirit wants to teach and train us to lay still on the altar. We know from painful experience if we are not seeking to live the surrendered life, we are simply enduring our salvation.
I am not suggesting it is easy, but the Lord’s grace and strength is available to us, and as we learn to CONTINUALLY SURRENDER WE WILL ENJOY OUR SALVATION, and grow in grace in our knowledge and relationship with the Lord,
I have probably not said one new single thing in this blog, but it is a message and truth, that we need to be reminded of CONSTANTLY as we can forget so soon. May this essential truth be an ever increasing revelation to every Believer amen.
