Are You Gonna Surrender?

"You better give up it's time to stop running it's the end of the line, it's time to surrender.  Hands up turn it around fall to the ground are you gonna surrender?"  Third Day.

"Therefore submit to God."  James 4:7a.

I'm becoming increasingly more aware of the fast that I need to surrender my life, will and everything over to Jesus Christ.  Surrender and submit both mean literally the same thing.  Both words imply "giving up, and allowing oneself to be voluntarily placed under the authority of someone else.   This week I asked Jesus what I needed to do in order to be in a deeper relationship with Him and he told me, "completely surrender and submit your life over to me."   When I heard these words I literally cried.  Because immediately I realized that I've never completely surrendered to anyone.

My past has been trashed by abuse and instances where surrendering and submitting would have been the death of me.  In fact, it was precisely not surrendering that saved me.   I mean let's look at the evidence.  Had I surrendered completely I would still be one of Jehovah's Witnesses today.  I would still be sick from the Bulima and I'd still be a smoker.  One can surrender to anything; good or bad.  A person can easily succumb to the power of any addiction.  It is my opinion that you surrender to anything when you give your power away to that particular object.  So the words submission and surrender were not in my vocabulary.  However, I do not believe for a second that Jesus would ever ask me to  do something that I couldn't do.  He knows that I'm ready, now I just need to know it.

I have always controlled myself and I like it.  Cause if I'm controlling myself I'm calling the shots, playing it safe and protecting me.  At least I know that I won't allow myself to be hurt.

However, what I think that I'm  really dealing with here is ghosts from the past.  In order to completely submit and surrender to Jesus, I must trust Him.  Now, in the beginning I said, "No, I will never completely trust anyone ever again, not after my parents and all those other people   ended up hurting me."  But then I really thought about it.  Was I being fair to hold Jesus accountable for everyone else?   Next, I had to consider the evidence.  When I think about it; every single time that I've ever needed Jesus, He's always came through....  So I already know that He can be trusted.  My Pastor believes that Christians need to sit up literal monuments to serve as reminders of times when Jesus has came through for them. For example; if a person gets healed mark it.  If a person is blessed with more finances mark it,,,etc.  I have to say that I agree with him because I've had many blessings throughout my life but sometimes I just forget them.

Another reason that I know that I can fully submit and surrender to Jesus is because of His character.  He never changes, He does not lie, and most importantly, if we belong to Him, He promises to supply everything that we need!  In reality; we either believe that He is who He says He is and He'll do what He says He'll do or we don't.  Jesus don't want no wishy-washy followers.

So........after all the evidence is taken into consideration my verdict is that surrender and submit, I must.  Now I just have to figure out how.