Category: Absolute Surrender

A life of absolute surrender has two sides — on the one side, absolute surrender to do the work that God wants you to do; on the other side, to let God work what He wants to do in you.

Give up yourself absolutely to the will of God. You know something of that will; not enough, far from all. But still, you know some. Say “Lord God, not a word upon my tongue but for Your glory, not a movement of my temper but for Your glory, not an affection of love or hate in my heart but for Your glory, and according to Your blessed will.”

God wants to bless you in a way even beyond what you expect. It is God who will enable you to carry out the surrender. He is waiting to help you do it. Come and say: “I give myself absolutely to You, God, to let You work in me to will and to do of Your good pleasure, as You have promised to do.” Only let your absolute surrender be one of simple, childlike, and unbounded trust.

God wants us to be separate from the world; we are called to come out from the world that hates God. You have been praying for blessing. But do remember there must first be absolute surrender. At every tea-table you see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty and given up for the tea. But put vinegar into it, and one cannot pour tea into it. Can God fill you, can God bless you if you are not absolutely surrendered to receive from Him?

Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we will but stand up for God and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart: “O God, I am Yours and all that I have is Yours. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to You.” As you bow before Him, just accept God’s teaching that in your flesh “there dwells no good thing,” and that nothing will help you except another life which must come in. You must deny self, and then Christ will come in and take possession of you.

As the Spirit reveals Christ Jesus to us, Christ comes to live in our hearts forever, and the self-life is cast out. Separation and death — separation from the world and death to self. Surely one ought to say: “Anything is good that brings me to separation and to death, for a life of full fellowship with God and Christ.”

Cast this self-life and flesh-life at the feet of Jesus. Then trust Him. Do not worry yourself with trying to understand all about it, but come in the living faith that Christ Jesus will come into you with the power of His death — and the power of His life; and then the Holy Spirit will bring the whole Christ – Christ crucified and risen and living in glory – into your heart.

[adapted from Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray]

God urges us, by the hidden power of His Holy Spirit, to come and talk it out; then we are to bring and to yield to Him that absolute surrender. It may, as far as your feelings or your consciousness go, be a thing of great imperfection, and you may doubt and hesitate and say: Is it absolute? But remember there was once a man to whom Christ Jesus had said: “If you can believe; all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23).

If you come and say: “Lord, I yield myself in absolute surrender to my God,” even though it be with a trembling heart and with a conscience of “I do not feel the determination”, it will still succeed. Be not afraid, but come just as you are, and even in the midst of your trembling the power of the Holy Ghost will work.

We want to get help, every one of us, so that in our daily life God shall be clearer to us, God shall have the right place and be “all in all”. And if we are to have that through life, let us begin now and look away from ourselves, and look up to God. Let each believer, a poor worm on earth and a trembling child of God, full of failure and sin and fear, bow here and now, and say, “O God, I accept Your terms; I have pleaded for blessings on myself and others and not received. I now accept Your terms of absolute surrender.”

Remember there is a God present that takes note of it! You may not feel it, you may not realize it, but God does take possession if you will trust Him.

When God has accepted your surrender, then God holds Himself bound to care for it and to keep it. In this matter of surrender there are only two: God and I — I, a worm; God, the everlasting and omnipotent Jehovah. Believe that He can keep you continually, day by day, and moment by moment. If God allows the sun to shine upon you without intermission, is God not also able to allow His life to shine upon you every moment?

A life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. I don’t deny that. It is a life that with men is absolutely impossible. But by the grace of God, by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, it is a life to which we are destined. A life that is possible for us, praise God! Let us believe.