Withholding Nothing / I Surrender All / I Give Myself Away / Have Thine Own Way
Great songs. I love them all. They express a heart’s desire to lay your life down as a living sacrifice to the Lord. To be clay in the potter’s hands. To be totally yielded to the Lord. A very humble feeling.
Yet we know that it’s got to be MORE than a feeling. More than an “experience”. More than an “emptying out”. More than a passive surrender. It’s only real when it’s followed with obedience!
In order to obey, we first must hear… whether it’s an order, a commandment… or even a suggestion. It’s only after we hear the voice of the Lord, that we can make the choice to obey, or not to obey. Only then can we (and God) know that we are truly surrendering… withholding nothing… or if our words are empty.
So the first step of surrender… giving God our heart, is giving God our ears. We don’t even get an opportunity to obey, until our ears have heard. How many times does the Word of God tell us to “hearken, and obey”, in that order?
When we sing ‘surrender songs’ like these, (and all the time, really), we need to quiet ourselves, until we hear His voice. We know He wants us to obey, so we know he wants us to hear… personally, one on one. We can’t show God our surrender by doing something for Him that we came up with on our own (like Cain). We can’t show God we’ve sold out to Him, by just copying what our brothers and sisters are doing, who seem to be sold out to God.
God knows what YOU need to hear, and do, and change. He sees exactly what you’re holding back, or what’s holding you back. It’s like the rich young man recorded in the Gospels, who came to Jesus, supposing he had surrendered all. He thought he had done everything that God had commanded, but still felt there was something lacking… and just couldn’t put his finger on it. Well, Jesus DID put His finger on it, and that man went away sorrowful, because his surrender wasn’t total.
“Withholding nothing” is not defined as following what God told someone else to do, and doing what they do. Jesus was not telling everybody to literally sell all their earthly possessions, and give to the poor. It was for that man, personally. He also has something very personal, and very specific to say to me and you. And it very well might be something He’s not asking everybody else to do. That will especially put our surrender to the test. We all want to fit in, and not be different, or too extreme. It’s human nature to say, “Why should I have to do this, if others don’t.”
So let’s really surrender all, starting with our ears. Let’s let Jesus put His finger on our own heart. There’s nothing to fear. He LOVES us! And if we truly love the Lord, we won’t fear what He might tell us. It’s what we WANT!
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