devotion

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Surrender and Abandonment

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. “ (Romans 12:1)

Surrender and Abandonment are not new concepts; this Biblical principle is seen throughout Scripture. God’s relationship with man is based on his degree of surrender and abandonment. Because of His absolute Holiness and sovereignty, He demands absolute surrender and abandonment of our life.

To the outsider, this may seem like an unreasonable request, encroaching on man’s free spirit and the ability to live his own life on his own terms. However, to the committed follower of Christ, we realize that God in His wisdom knows that unless we are willing to cast ourselves on Him completely, we will go the way of the world. In other words, absolute surrender and abandonment is for our benefit. The deepest contentment and inner peace is found in absolute surrender and abandonment.

When we live in this state we are living in complete trust and dependence upon our Lord. The Biblical principles of “In order to receive we must give” and “In order to save our life we must lose our life” are all connected to the principle of surrender and abandonment.

God wants us in the position that we have no place to turn but Him. He wants us to hold on tightly to nothing but His promises. He wants nothing to be more passionate to us than our love and devotion to Him. The unique thing about this proposition is that it enables us to love our friends, spouse and our children with a quality of love that we could never manufacture on our own. It causes us to love and give ourselves to those who are unlovely, troubled and hopeless. We become a magnet of God’s love to the world.

About this time every year my thoughts move toward how I want next year to be different. Rather than setting a lot of goals that I will probably give up on in a few months, I like to focus my primary New Year’s resolutions on a renewed commitment to surrender and abandonment. I review those areas that I struggle with surrendering. I examine those areas that I have a tendency to surrender and then take back. What are those areas of my life that I just can’t let go of?

I think I am doing pretty well at living the Christian life until I start to examine those areas where there is a lack of surrender and abandonment. One of the things that helps me with this process is to read over various prayers of surrender by saints of past centuries. I have listed a prayer below by Francis Fenelon, a 16th Century priest who was one of the great spiritual voices of France. It is one of the prayers I am focusing on this year. I must admit, reading through this does not give me great pleasure, but it does allow the Holy Spirit to remind me of my inconsistencies.

Please remember that surrender and abandonment is not about “doing more for God”, but about allowing God to do a work in your heart so that you may be in sync with Him. As you read this prayer may the Holy Spirit give you a nudge toward a greater degree of surrender and abandonment.

Dear Lord, I desire to give myself completely to you. Give me the courage and strength to make this leap of faith. My Spirit longs for you. Strengthen my will and my reserve to surrender all of the compartments of my life to you. If I don’t have the strength to give you everything, then draw me by the sweetness of your love. Lord, I know that I am your child and I belong to you. I am horrified by thought that I belong to myself and to my passions! Help me find all my happiness in you, for there is no happiness outside of you.

Why am I afraid to break out of my chains? Do the things of this world mean more to me than you? Am I afraid to give myself to you? What a mistake! It is not even I who would give me to you, but you who would give yourself to me. Take my heart.

What a joy it is to be with you, to be quiet so that I might hear your voice! Feed me and teach me out of your depths. Oh God, you only make me love you. Why should I fear to give you everything and draw close to you? To be left to the world is more frightening than this. Your mercy can overcome any obstacle. I am unworthy of you, but I can become a miracle of your grace. (Francois De Fenelon 1651-1715)

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Stewardship of the Mind

During most of my Christian life nearly every sermon or lesson I heard on the subject of stewardship had to do with money. So to me, spiritual stewardship was about our relationship to money. It wasn’t till years later that I realized that our relationship to money was only a part of spiritual stewardship. Biblical stewardship relates to every area of our life.

Giving money, reading your Bible and regularly meeting with believers is just part of our spiritual stewardship. I have met numerous believers who were tithers and faithful church members but their lives were a mess. I think part of the reason is they neglected the necessity of being a good steward in all areas of their life.

One of the major areas of neglect is in the area of setting our mind. Our mind is a wonderful gift from God. Our mind has the ability to create, reason, compute and to dream great things. When we become a follower of Christ our life changes and we have a brand new nature (2 Cor. 5:17), but our mind needs to be developed to think consistent with our new nature. Theologically, that’s called the act of sanctification. It is up to us to be a good steward of our mind and learn to think with the mind of Christ ( 1 Cor. 2;16). If we don’t intentionally set our mind upon truth, then our mind will naturally go the way of the flesh and the culture. The Scripture admonishes us to set our mind on things above in Colossians 3.

In this devotional I want to address four hindrances to good stewardship of our mind.

Worry – Worry begins with little things, things that seem insignificant. But if those little worries are left unchecked a pattern of worry will develop, and soon worry becomes a way of life. As a follower of Jesus, there are many reasons for us to avoid falling into the worry trap. First of all, if God takes care of the flowers and the birds, He will take care of us. (Matthew 6:25-34) Also, the Scripture tells us to be “anxious for nothing” in Philippians 4. Worry is our acknowledgement that we don’t believe what God says applies to us. We must learn to bring everything to God in prayer and trust Him to give us wisdom and strength to face every issue of life. Bottom line, you can choose to worry or you can choose to trust God.

Indifference – This is a slippery slope and a very serious place to be as a committed follower of Christ. Indifference is tied to the principle of fence sitting. For some it is a safe place to be, but the decision to be indifferent is really based on fear. The Bible speaks about indifference in the book of Revelation when it refers to the church of Laodicea. Jesus said, “Because you are neither cold nor hot I will spit you out of my mouth. “ (Rev. 3) The Scripture teaches anything less than radical trust in God is lukewarm. When we are indifferent in our commitment to Christ it affects every other area of our life. We become indifferent about our relationships, about opportunity, our job, and about hard decisions we need to make. Indifference is a choice of the mind. If you are a fence sitter, get off the fence and get back in the game.

Indecision – Motivational speaker Jim Rohne said, “Indecision is the thief of opportunity.” I can’t tell you how many times that indecision has caused me to miss an opportunity to share my faith or give comfort and care to someone who needed an encouraging word. It has also cost me to miss out on a business opportunity or two. Indecision sometimes causes us to over-think a situation and causes us to not trust the voice of God. Is your indecision based on fear or a lack of wisdom?

Doubt – Doubt is tied to indecision and fear. We ought to be cautious and careful to weight our decisions with logic, but you can’t let doubt take over your life. Once doubt sets in you doubt the past, the present, and then the future. This is where setting your mind on truth is essential. When you surrender your rights and expectations to the Lord and begin to rest in Christ’s love, your legitimate doubts will become a red flag and your unfounded doubts will flee. The Scripture says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and He will direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5)

Proper stewardship of the mind begins by giving our worry to God, trading in our indifference for positive faith, then casting our indecision and doubt aside by putting our trust in God.