Vibrance Ministries: Submission Is NOT Surrender

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
- James 4:7-10

Submission is the conscious decision to yield to a higher authority. Surrender is the complete letting go of resistance. Submission can be done without surrender, surrender requires total submission.

When life drives you to the mat, takes everything you've got and leaves you broken before your God you cry out 'I surrender all'. You have nothing left to lose, so you choose to recognize and honor Him as God. You are in submission, not surrender.

When we spend our prayer time wrestling with our circumstances and with our God, begging, pleading, groveling, negotiating, laying down our terms and seeking every possible way to manipulate God into submission, we are certainly not surrendered.

We're really just trying to get God to submit to our demands and desires, rather than submitting ourselves to His.

Surrender requires a new attitude. Surrender not only recognizes God's authority, power, strength and wisdom as superior to our own, it also trusts. Surrender says, I not only bow before Your power but I allow myself to be dependent on You. I trust you with everything. I belong to You and I choose You.

Therefore, as the popular song says 'Jesus, take the wheel, take it from my hands, I'm letting go'*. Whatever comes next keep your hands off the wheel, keep your mouth closed and let God run the show.

"Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." - 1 Peter 5:6

This is the essence of surrender. Letting God be GOD in your situation. Which means you don't get to set the terms, or choose the timing. We don't get to judge and criticize every twist and turn and get on God's case for not doing it right. We trust every moment of it.

We relax, we praise Him as it unfolds, we look for the blessing in each moment, we celebrate each victory, and when the losses come we accept them with grace and simple faith.

If you are forced into submission, your heart remains in rebellion. When you find surrender your heart finds peace. It is from the place of surrender that God will prove Himself strong in your life.

So why not give it a try? Choose to submit to God in every aspect of everything, every day of your life. Then take it up a notch, surrender. Give God His due, He's got you. He just needs you to recognize and honor that.

Surrender all. It is the least He asks of you.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
- Galatians 2:20

Author: Max Patrick @VibranceMinistries

*Song Credit : Carrie Underwood "Jesus Take The Wheel"

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