Thought Quotient

God has a plan for your life that is more fulfilling than anything you can naturally imagine. He wants His best for you, but before you can receive it, you must fully surrender to Him.

In Romans 12:1, Paul urges us to:

“…present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

He is not talking here about just your physical body, but about your total being - body, soul, and spirit. We are to surrender all of it to Him, as a sacrifice. The Old Testament says that once a sacrifice is made, you can’t take it back. Once the lamb was slain on the altar, you couldn’t have it returned. It was surrendered - totally and irrevocably - to God’s purposes. Your surrender must be like that - complete, unconditional, and permanent.

God has every right to require this of you, simply because He is your Creator and Lord. He has very clear purposes in mind. God wants you fully surrendered to Him because:

• He loves your worship. God wants us to worship Him and Him alone. Yet how can we do that if there are areas of our lives that we are unwilling to yield to Him?
• He wants your service to Him to be effective and fruitful. Yes, it’s possible to serve God under your own power - and perhaps even see some good come of it. But why plant only two acres when you can plant a thousand acres? The fruit of serving God your way can never compare to what comes of being in the center of His will.
• God wants the freedom to bless you. God is all-powerful, but He does not violate His own principles - and one of his principles is that obedience brings blessings. When we experience fewer of God’s blessings, it’s often our own fault - we have closed the door by insisting on controlling our own lives.

If you are struggling with the Christian life, it may be because you are going it alone, trying to make your own decisions. That’s natural - we all like our freedom. However, what we fail to recognize is that the life fully surrendered to Almighty God is the freest life of all!

What is involved in a full surrender? It is a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of our entire being - body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we rightfully belong.

That’s what a full surrender requires: a deliberate, definite, voluntary transfer.

Once you are surrendered, once your life is fully His, an amazing thing happens … God assumes full responsibility for your life!

Can you imagine anything more wonderful or more exciting than having the Ruler of the Universe planning your career, guiding your family, shaping your destiny?

Charles Stanley - In Touch Ministries