The Surrendered Way Joshua 24:14-15 1 Kings 18:21 2 Kings 17:38-41 Matthew 23:11-12 Luke 9:23-26 John 15:5-6 Galatians 2:20 Matthew 22:36-40 1 John 2:6 11.20.19

THE SURRENDERED WAY

BREAD

¹⁴ “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”  Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)

²¹ Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”  But the people said nothing. 1 Kings 18:21 (NIV)

³⁸ Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods. ³⁹ Rather, worship the LORD your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.  ⁴⁰ They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. ⁴¹ Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did. 2 Kings 17:38-41 (NIV)

¹¹ “The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”   Matthew 23:11-12 (NIV)

²³ Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. ²⁵ What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? ²⁶ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”  Luke 9:23-26 (NIV)

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”  John 15:5-6 (NIV)

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (NIV)

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)

⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.  1 John 2:6 (NIV)

BUTTER

“Even faithful people will go through the wilderness, even faithful people will have to surrender the most precious things.  Yet because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed. We are not consumed by our circumstances. We are not consumed by rejection. We are not consumed by cancer or divorce or infertility or trauma or abuse or anxiety or fear or even death. Because of His great love, we are not consumed.  We open our hands. We offer him the entire portion of Hard. Every last bit of it. Our anger, too? Yes, even our anger.  We say, ‘Here it is. All of it. It’s a horrible mess. I cannot do anything here that will make this better. So I’m opening up my hands and I’m giving you the whole tangle.’ And then we do it again. And again. And again.  A few times every hour, if needed. After all, His mercies are new, His compassions never fail. We choose to open our hands when what we’d rather do is clamp shut, protect, defend. We offer instead of hide.  This is the only way I know to make the journey.  You are held. It is all held. You are not lost. You are not broken. You are not disqualified. You are not sidelined. You are not silenced. You are not swallowed whole. You are held. Benevolently. Faithfully. Held.  There is always a hand reaching toward you.  There is always grace available. And there is always a chance to begin again.”   Leeana Tankersley

“It costs much to obtain the power of the Spirit:  It costs self-surrender and humiliation and a yielding up of our most precious things to God; it costs the perseverance of long waiting, and the faith of strong trust.  But when we are really in that power, we shall find this difference, that whereas before, it was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hard things.”    A. J. Gordon

“Faith, as Paul saw it, was a living, flaming thing leading to surrender and obedience to the commandments of Christ.”   A.W. Tozer

“Jesus is the One who shows us the paradoxical route to meaning in a chaotic and hostile world.  It’s the paradox of the gospel: Strength is found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found in surrender…. God uses the frustrations of this life and the hurt of relationships to compel us to look beyond what we can control to the God who controls all things in order to woo us to himself. As we move from control to surrender, we move from chasing the wind under the sun to embracing God above it.”  Dan Allender

“The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”  William Booth

“Contrary to the world's beliefs, the spiritual fruit of self-control does not come about through the discipline of self-mastery, but rather through surrendering ourselves to God's control. None of us fully have the power, capability, or wisdom to master our own lives. You cannot resist all the temptations that are hurled at you, control the behavior of those closest to you, or limit the ideas that pop into your mind. What you can do is surrender your life to the Holy Spirit. You can control how you respond, yield, and submit to Him.”    Michael Youssef

“Unlike the worldly culture around us, we are not rudderless. We have God's guiding Holy Spirit to show us the best course. But first we must surrender completely to following His will and His commandments, even when they do not match our personal desires. We must spend regular time in prayer learning His voice and His heart. The more we know God, the easier it will be to discern His voice from our own self-serving thoughts.”   Michael Youssef

“What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift. And I think of everything I have chaffed against and railed about and howled to the heavens and who am I to know what is best or not — but when you bow and surrender to the sovereignty of God then you are in the posture to receive all as a gift.”  Ann Voskamp

“The condition of an enlightened mind is a surrendered heart.”   Greg Laurie

“Paul didn’t choose joy in Christ because he couldn’t find joy anywhere else. He had tasted and enjoyed the glory of success and popularity — the Hebrew of Hebrews, the Pharisee of Pharisees, the most zealous, the most blameless, the most recognized (Philippians 3:5-6). When he chose to follow Jesus, he surrendered the kind of life others would die for — and he surrendered that life for more happiness, not less.”   Marshall Segal

“You don’t truly know God unless you surrender, believe, and truly obey the Word of God.”  Ann Voskamp 

HEART SAVOR

·        Surrender is the path we walk to take hold of the life that is truly life.

·       We cannot sing “I Surrender All” if we are not first willing to sing “Wherever He leads I’ll Go”.

·       The greatness of our power is measured in our surrender.  God will not own what mere flesh can accomplish.  It is only through His power that we are able to do things eternal.