SURRENDER IS VICTORY!

Man did not create the true God for mans purposes, but the true God created man for His own purposes.

Hebrews 11:6 ….for he who comes to God must believe that He is…..

All the human race starts somewhere.   We have a beginning and we realize at some point in our life journey that we will most certainly have an end in this physical world.

If we haven’t already been introduced to the Creator of Heaven and earth it is certain that we will start thinking thoughts of this nature.  Once we do, we discover a choice must be made.  To believe or to reject.  How fearsome a thing is free will after all.  Rejection has its own consequence. 

This morning, let us consider the consequence of believing.

As we begin to learn and grow in understanding it is very possible and almost probable that we will find ourselves again in conflicts.  Conflicted between our new heart’s desire to please the Almighty God we’ve now chosen to abandon ourselves in obedience to and the old, fleshly desire of sin that continues to rear its ugly head and demand our attention.  Most of us might even come to agree that this is the hardest “fight” in the life journey of a believer.  When won, it is almost surely a long arduous battle which has left many scars.  We take courage in the knowledge that all believers face this fight.  We are enlivened to know we do not struggle in this alone, but our brothers and sisters in Christ struggle as well. 

But there is another battle.  One more subtle than the battle of flesh and spirit quarreling over our attention.  One deep in our heart we wrestle mightily with and are hard pressed to see anyone else’s struggle in order to be encouraged by it.  It is the struggle of FAITH, wrapped snugly around and intertwined with the struggle of understanding.  Being human, we want to SEE before we believe, but that is not an available option.  We form our thoughts and behaviors on our experiential history, but this struggle often defies that avenue of wisdom.

It is the struggle to reconcile ourselves to trust and believe and obey and surrender our complete and whole and total selves to a God we cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell in the even harder circumstance of what appears to be contradictions.  He is a God of GRACE and MERCY, yet also a God of WRATH and RIGHTEOUSNESS.  He is kind and forgiving, while remaining completely HOLY and JUST.  He LOVES US, yet CHASTISES US in our disobedience sometimes quite severly.

And we are to TRUST HIM, not in spite of these seeming contradictions, but inside these very contradictions.  Brothers and Sisters, this is hard!  Hard to walk by faith, hard to live in obedience.  Yet this is the place of SURRENDER.  Not blind faith, not foolish faith.  Perhaps not even faith at all.  Simple SURRENDER, embracing the spiritual knowledge that when one comes to the Lord, one must believe that He is…..AND that He is a REWARDER of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

In the diligent seeking is where you will find, not easy to follow directions, but the strength and grace necessary to SURRENDER.  Consider the idea in this sentence deeply and well:

Man did not create the true God for mans purposes, but the true God created man for His own purposes. ~ Reverend Marie Krebs

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