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Do you sing that song and truthfully think of its meaning and embrace all that it suggests?
What are you surrendering?
A few years ago through a season when God was teaching me to “let go” of those things I could not control; for some odd reason I felt that my obsessing would somehow change the circumstance in another person’s life or even my own. After much agony and defeat, I finally began to get it.
- To truly surrender all to Jesus is to really let go.
But, what am I letting go of?
With Easter being the celebration of the sacrifice of His life and His subsequent and miraculous and wonderful resurrection so that I could have eternal life, then surrendering to Him must mean to freely give Him my life, and my control over it, and be free to live as accepted and loved…..by Him.
It is about my spiritual journey.
But what about the other things in my life that I need to let go of?
- “I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.”
The cross is just the beginning of Kingdom living here on earth. It is the beginning of a redeemed eternity for us. We were never meant to just stop at surrendering our life for an entrance into Heaven, as great as that is. We were meant to walk in His presence in the here and now.
He wants all of us, all the time!!
We don’t have to work at loving and trusting Him, we just do. We just invite Him into our daily presence and “let go”.
- “All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow
Worldly pleasures all forsaken take me, Jesus, take me now.”
We bow at His feet in the spirit and surrender. We forsake our trust in the world and its ways and our own limited understanding. He will take us to higher places with Him.
It is not a religious thing. It is a relationship thing.
In my worry and fretting I had to learn to use my imagination, (that he gave to us by the way).
How to let go?
How to let go?
I envisioned myself holding in my cupped hands the object of my anxiety and worry. There in my hands would be my child, my husband, my book, my ministry. I could see it there (miniature because it was resting in my palms)… in my spirit. Then, Jesus would come up behind me and put His arms around me. He would cup His hands under mine. I would then open my hands and let it drop into His hands. He would then close His hands over my concern and hold it close to His heart as He would walk away with my burden. At that point I experienced the most profound thing. A weight lifted off my heart and I could take a deep breath again, with NO anxiety. He had it! I didn’t have to give it another thought.
Just trust Him!!
And this is what I realized at that moment:
He could now change the situation, in my surrender, because I was no longer in charge and thus, in the way.
I was trying to do the work of the Holy Spirit because of my fear and so I continued to get in the way.
He would do a much better job because He works from the heart and knows the whole story and, again, I wasn’t in the way.
I can only see the outward appearances; therefore, whatever I wanted to see changed could not be approached from the heart with my own devices.
- “All to Jesus I surrender, Make me Savior wholly thine. May Thy Holy Spirit fill me and May I know Thy power divine.”
So, how can we celebrate the joyous occasion of His resurrection power this Easter without surrendering the whole of our lives to Him in every sense of the word?
I think of Mary of Magdala that morning she went to the tomb and it was empty. Can you put yourself there? She had been traveling with Him; saw the miracles, got to know Jesus, the Man, God personified. She thought He was to become King the night He was killed. Can you imagine her shock upon hearing that the Sanhedrin had taken Him and were going to crucify Him, and the profound confusion and heartache?
But He appeared to her, at first disguising Himself. I can see His playfulness in that. He was enjoying the surprise and joy at the reunion after His death and resurrection. She loved Him with her whole heart. It was at that point, at the moment, that she understood and He fully became her Lord and her God. How could she not surrender all that she knew and understood to Him?
- “All to Him my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
Judson W. Van DeVenter (1855-1939) wrote I Surrender All and it was put to music by Winfield S. Weeden (1847-1908), who published it and many other hymns in several volumes. Weeden so loved this song that the words I Surrender All were put on his tombstone. The words and melody of I Surrender All have appeared in virtually every English hymnal, and are just as readily sung in churches that prefer contemporary music.