Our Footsteps: I Surrender All

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I Surrender All

Surrender? Never. No one wants to surrender. Surrender is a sign of weakness - a sign of loss - giving up - losing the will to fight to the end and win. Right?

But the gospel message is one of complete surrender. Humbly giving up all our rights to do what Christ wants us to do. That's pretty hard for those of us who want to be able to claim even just a little bit of credit for our successes in life (and blame our failures on others).

On Sunday morning, our congregation sang the great and mighty hymn, "I Surrender All". It was different this time. Every heart and voice was lifted to a different level and the song was more meaningful than ever before. It occurred to me that God wants me - wants us - to surrender ALL. Not some, not most... but ALL. He doesn't want the half-hearted. He doesn't want the mediocre. He doesn't want the left-overs. He doesn't want the proud. He wants the ones that understand that they can't 'win' on their own. He wants the ones who have counted everything else as loss. He wants the ones who have given up trying to please Him by their filthy rags of personal righteousness. He wants the ones who have thrown up the white flag of complete surrender, fully trusting in Him to do to them only what is for their good and for His glory.

I put alot of songs and hymns and praises out on this blog. That is because music can touch the heart in ways that other means cannot. God created us to appreciate music, and biblical sound words/lyrics can provoke us to think, provoke us to worship, provoke us to self-evaluation. Music, in its proper context, helps us rejoice at times and helps us cope at other times.

I hope I can sing the words of this song and mean it:

All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessèd Savior,I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

Refrain
All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

Refrain
All to Jesus, I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

Refrain
All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!

Mark

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.