Sweet Surrender
Luke 9:23-27
Throughout the Bible, God calls upon us again and again to yield ourselves to Him. He will not compel such surrender, though. Instead, He invites. He wants consecration, not coercion.
In our scripture lesson today, Jesus invites us to follow Him, and He lays out how to do it. We must take up our cross daily. Jesus demonstrated what that was like in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed, “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will be done.”
Taking up your cross is surrendering your life to God through Jesus Christ.
Many people who bear the name Christian have never experienced the reality of what God offers because they haven’t taken up their cross, yet.
The hymn writer, John Sammis shared a powerful truth in the middle of his hymn, “Trust and Obey” when he said, and we often sing, “But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay.”
He’s saying, “If you really want Me in your life, if you want forgiveness and peace and joy that you’ve never known before, The first thing that you must do is give up. You have to surrender.”
