The heart of worship is surrender.
When you think about worship do you equate that to surrender? The word surrender is probably right up there in popularity with other words like submission or obey. We seem to associate surrender with losing, with quitting or giving up. In our hyper competitive, super performance oriented society these are not concepts that we generally celebrate.
If winning is everything then surrendering is unthinkable.
We prefer to talk about overcoming, winning, succeeding or conquering more than we do yielding, submitting or surrendering. But surrendering to God is the heart of worship and worship is the beginning of discovering purpose.
Why would we surrender to God?
Because he first loves us.
We surrender and worship because we come to a place of believing in and accepting that God love us. The more we embrace his love, the more we feel to surrender. Rick Warren in ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ notes 3 barriers to us fully surrendering to God: fear, pride and confusion.
Trust is an essential ingredient in us surrendering to God. Can we trust God? Well, in order to trust someone we need to get to know them and what might hinder us from getting to know someone is fear. God is love. It’s who he is. The more we grow in love the less we grow in fear and the more we get to know him. The best place to look at God’s expression of love for every single one of us is to look to Jesus. Jesus is love in the flesh, given for and to you and I.
It’s often a tough thing to face when we realise our limitations. Instead of seeing it as a negative, embrace the humility that arrives with limitations and realise that pride always hinders us from fully surrendering to God. That tendency we all have to want to control actually brings with it the negative side effect of stress and anxiety. Coming to the end of yourself is never a pleasant experience but it may be a necessary one. The good thing is that the end of yourself is the more of God.
Surrendering is not for cowards. It takes us courage to let go and let God. It’s not about being passive or lazy and it’s not about being thoughtless and without wisdom. God has created us in such a way that he has given us ability and a mind and he invites us to use those in the midst of our surrender. Surrendering is not erasing who you are, it’s discovering who you really are by trusting in who’s you are.
“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because he made us.”
CS Lewis
Rick Warren writes “You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on him to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda and control the situation.”
Surrender to God brings peace. It brings freedom. It’s brings about the tangible sense of God at work in your life. We all eventually surrender to something or someone. Perhaps the opinions of others, to material wealth, to achievement or just to our own ego.
We are entirely free to choose what we surrender to but as Warren states “we are not free from the consequence of that choice.”
Surrendering to Christ is not the best way to live, it’s the only way to live. What have you got to lose? Offer your life, your past, your hurts, fears. Offer your hopes, dreams and future. It’s better with him anyway.
Will it be easy? I can promise you that it will not be. But it will be significant, it will rich and deep. This can’t be a once-off decision either, this needs to a daily decision that will come under a test. Keep letting go to keep holding on.
Summary:
Remember – The heart of worship is surrender.
Key Bible Verse – “Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” Romans 6:13b
Prayer: Father, I offer it all to you. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, may your will be done.
Much love
Bevan
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