God’s Condition for His Full Blessing - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, August 30th. One of the hardest things believers have to do is say, I give up. But as you'll learn today, that's the position God intends for a believer to take for your good and His glory.

God can absolutely change your life, revolutionize your life, change your sense of circumstances, and change the flow of the blessings of God in your life. You say, well, how can you promise me that? Well, I don't have to promise you that. All I have to say is this. Here's what God says.

He has never lied. And those of us who've been saved a long time, we've lived long enough to watch what God does, how He operates and how His ways work out in our lives. We know He will keep His Word not to the last breath, but through all eternity.

I want you to turn, if you will, to Romans chapter twelve. And the title of this message is God's Condition for His Full Blessing. There is a condition in order to experience God's full blessing in our life. You say, well, now, what do you mean by full blessing? Here's what I mean. I mean to be able to experience all that God has planned for your life. Well, what is that?

Here's what it is. It's whatever He knows is best in every single area of your life. He's a good God. He has the best in store.

The issue is, do I want His best? Am I willing to take not God's second best because He offers no second best, but am I willing to be satisfied with far less than? God wants to give. God wants to reveal. God wants to give of Himself or whatever abundance He wants to send our way.

Are you willing to take less when you can have the very best? Well, Romans chapter twelve, these first two verses. He says, Therefore I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is.

What's that? That which is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, when Paul begins this passage by saying, Therefore, what he's doing, he's referring to everything he's written from chapter one all the way through these first eleven chapters. And he's been talking about the sinful and helpless condition of mankind. God's justifying redeeming, saving, forgiving work on the cross.

The indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the Christian life. And now he comes and he talks about his mercy that he's bestowed upon us, shown us mercy. And he says, Therefore, on the basis of all that God has done for us, he says, I beseech you, I urge you, I plead with you, to present your body a living, holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is the reasonable right thing to do. And he says, Stop allowing yourself to be poured into the world's mold.

He says, That's not the best way. The best way is God's way of sacrifice. Now with that in mind, I want to talk about this one condition in order to receive God's full blessing.

There are not many conditions. There's one ultimate condition that is the bottom line to receive God's best. And when you look at this passage, it's very evident here that God's condition for full blessing calls for a full surrender. God's condition for a full blessing calls for a full surrender.

What does he say? I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your body. He's not simply talking about your physical body, but that's your whole being. Body, soul and spirit, the total being as a sacrifice, living, holy sacrifice, acceptable to God. God offers His best.

He has prepared His best. And the truth is I can either be satisfied with less than God has to offer or I can ask the question, God, what would you do with me if I gave you my whole life? What would you send my way if I offered my life without reservation, without any bargaining, without any kind of holding back in any area of my life? What would you do? What could you do? What are you willing to do?

What do you want to do? One thing for certain, God has prepared the very best that He in His infinite wisdom and unconditional love can possibly provide for every single one of His children. Turn, if you will, to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight, a passage that you certainly ought to circle and memorize it or however you want to handle it, but certainly mark it in your Bible. Listen to this verse.

Verse thirty-one says, What then shall we say to those things? If God is for us, who is against us? Listen, God is for every single one of His children. He is on the side of every single one of His children. He is looking out for every single one of His children.

And so He says, He who did not spare His own Son, speaking of God not sparing, He said He did not spare Jesus, but delivered Him over for us all, that is in the crucifixion. How will He not also with Him, that is with Christ, freely give us all things? Listen, not stingily, but abundantly, freely give us all things. So here's a God who has a plan for us. He says we'll not want any good thing. He's stored up goodness for us.

And He says, here's what I want you to see. If I didn't reserve my only begotten Son, if I didn't keep Him to myself and I gave you the very best that I have, is that not an indication of what you can expect from me in your life? You can expect the best.

You can expect the very best that God could possibly conceive of and plan for your life. That is the very character of God. Now, let's think about something. Why do we reject?

Why do we recoil? Why do we resist a full surrender of our life? Because we'll say, I know He's God. I know He loves me unconditionally. I know He has the best for me.

I know He'll always do what's right for me. And yet, listen, we will declare that we believe every bit of that and at the same time when it comes to a full surrender, we resist it. We recall the verse, the words of total surrender. I want to hear about God's love and goodness and answered prayer, but surrender and yieldedness and sacrifice, I don't like those words.

Why do we protest God's idea of wanting absolute control of our life? And you know when I hear somebody say, well, I'll tell you right now, I'm going to have it my way. Only for a while, brother, only for a while.

It is magnificent how much they accumulate, how much prestige, prominence, power and all the rest. You know what? When you're having it your way, there's something very important missing in your life. And besides that, the things that people are trying to fill up their life with have no eternal value whatsoever. There's only one thing that can make you joyous.

There's only one thing that can give you surreal security. And that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. All that other stuff is just stuff that's passing away. Don't turn to ashes one of these days. But what about it?

Why is it we recoil? Number one, fear. And it's interesting the attitude people have about God. For example, somebody says, well, you know, I'm just afraid to make a full surrender because I'm afraid of what God may require of me. Now, what does that say? It says that my idea about God is this.

He's sitting up in heaven and He's just waiting for the day for me to give full surrender and then He's going to put it on me. That's the attitude people have. So people are afraid.

But you know what? It's false fear. What do you and I have to fear when we have an unconditional loving God who's provided us? He says, I've planned the best for you, have a plan for you. He says it's for welfare.

It's good, not calamity. So people are afraid. They're afraid to surrender. Listen, now ask yourself this question.

God wants me to give myself fully and absolutely and totally to Him. Now, what is it I'm afraid of? And if you will analyze what you're afraid of, it has no basis whatsoever. But there's a second reason. The second reason is because of our own sense of selfishness. We don't want even God dictating to our life, telling us what to do, telling us how to do it, and telling us when to do it. We just don't want God doing that. Now, we're willing to pray, go to church, read the Bible, do all those other things. But we don't want God telling us how to run our life.

Well, let me ask you a question. Does that mean that you and I are smarter about how to run our life than God is? That's what the implication is. You see, there has to be a reason. There is a reason in our thinking. I didn't say it was a good reason, a right reason. There has to be a reason that we are responding to God by withholding from Him our total being, our total selves. Has to be a reason. It certainly can't be because He's bad, because He's evil, because He'll mistreat us, or any of those things. It has to be because something in our thinking is not correct. Why would you not surrender your life totally and completely to a God who has your best in mind, who has planned the best for you, who's promised you the best, who loves you unconditionally, who's written your name in the Lamb's Book of Life, who's forgiven you of your sins, who's going to take you home to heaven and spend all eternity with you?

Why would you not do it? Acting any other way but in full surrender doesn't even fit who we are. Who are we? We're the purchased sons and daughters. But listen, we are owned by Him. We are owned by Him. He has the rights on us.

We have no right. And imagine us telling an omnipotent God, you can't have all of me, would be like this pen saying, I'm not going to write for you. And anybody whom the Lord has called to preach the gospel, the mission field, or serve Him in any way, my friend, for you to tell Almighty Sovereign God that you're not going to do it, have you thought about how serious that is? God's called you to teach a Sunday school class of young boys who need a father image.

They come from broken homes, no father, looking for somebody to be an influence in their life and you say, God, I'm not going to do that. Listen, do you realize what you're telling God? When He owns you, He possesses you, He has the right to control you. He can swipe you out and never even bat one of His divine eyes. And you're telling Him no.

My friend, you haven't been thinking very wisely that you're going to tell God no about any aspect of your life. He has a right to call for full surrender. And we protested because we're selfish and because we have an erroneous view of God and because our attitude is such that we think He's going to abuse us in some fashion. Now, with that in mind, let's get down to the hard, cold fact of what is and what is involved in this whole issue of making a full surrender. I want you to jot down three words. Here's what is involved in making a full surrender of your life to Christ.

Now, remember this. Say two things. When you got saved, more than likely nobody ever told you what you've heard this morning. You just got saved. They told you He was going to go to heaven when you died and that was good enough for you then.

You did the best you could. You read your Bible and prayed something, not being critical. I know exactly how it is.

Nobody told me anything about that either. And so you've sort of struggled through your life and made decisions on your own, never thinking about, for example, that God's interested in your job or God's interested in your family or God's interested in your children or God's interested in where you're going to school. In other words, you just sort of made those decisions.

God's been interested in every single one of those. I'm not being critical. I'm just saying, I want you to understand something. Three words. The first word is definite. Definite. The second word is deliberate. And the third word is voluntary.

Now think about this. By definite, I mean a specific decision. By deliberate, I mean carefully evaluated. You've thought about it, thought through it. Voluntary, that is, it is an act of your will, a choice that you've made. What is involved in a full surrender? It is a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of our entire being, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we rightfully belong.

That's the total being. Transfer, listen, voluntary transfer of undivided control, use, possession to Jesus Christ, to whom we rightfully belong. That's what a full surrender requires.

A deliberate, definite, voluntary transfer. And what we're saying is this. We're saying, God, from this point on, I've had it my way, but from this point on, it's your call. Whatever you want, that's what I want. That's what I'm going to do. Whatever you require, that's what I'm going to do. Wherever you say go, that's where I'm going.

Whatever you want, that's what I want. And when I don't want it, I'm going to trust you and obey you, even when I don't want what you say. There may be something in my flesh, and it's not easy oftentimes to be obedient, but you know what? It's not a matter that I always feel good about it. It's the matter that I acknowledge His right to require, and a life fully surrendered has transferred, listen, undivided, so that I don't have, I'm not running part of the show, and He's running part of the show.

I'm not, it's not part of me and part of Him doing this. It's not part of His possession, and I'm claiming something for myself. Undivided, undivided possession, control, and use of our total being, body, soul, and spirit, transferred to Jesus Christ whom rightfully belongs.

Only then is He practically the Lord of my life. Here's what that requires. Here's what it calls for. Lord, here's my life, no reservations, no bargaining, total absolute surrender. Is that difficult?

Yes, it is. Listen to this. That's why He sent the Holy Spirit to enable you and me, listen, to trust Him. That when we yield everything to Him and surrender everything to Him, in a definite, deliberate, voluntary decision on our part, that from that point on, watch this, if He owns us, He possesses us, He's responsible for us. God assumes full responsibility for the life fully surrendered to Him.

You cannot lose. You say, now, wait a minute, is that a one-time thing? Now, listen carefully. I do believe that there is a point in a person's life where they understand what we are talking about, and for the first time in their life, they recognize, genuinely, truly recognize that he has a right for absolute control. And they make that decision, Lord Jesus, I choose to make a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of all possession, all control, and all use of my life, no exception, no reservation, transfer to you, Lord Jesus, to do with me what you choose, when, where, and how.

I think there is a definite time. Now, following that, every time a decision comes up that would cause me to want to lean and move in some other direction, I have to renew. I must renew my position fully surrendered. Yes, Lord, fully surrendered. This is one of the wonderful things about your time of prayer and meditation, because what happens? Every time you get on our knees, are we getting to the Word and asking God to speak through our heart?

What happens? It is a wonderful time, and it should certainly be daily, at a minimum, daily, to say, Lord, I want you to check my life. Is there anything that I try to take control of today?

Is there any aspect of my life, Lord, that I'm trying to want to manipulate? I just lay that down. I just reaffirm total, full surrender. I want you to be absolute boss, because I trust you much better than I trust myself. You know what?

It's really very simple when you look at it. Obey God, leave all the consequences to him, because he assumes full responsibility for the life fully surrendered to him. He calls for a full surrender, listen, because he wants the best for us, and those who are willing to make that surrender will experience a joy they have never known, a peace they have never known, a confidence they have never known, a sense of security they have never experienced.

That is the gift, and so much more, if you're willing to trust him with your whole life, which belongs to him anyway. And what you're saying, in essence, is this. No longer will I have it my way. From this point on, I want it your way. And Father, how grateful we are.

You've put up with us for so long. You watch us struggle and fret and fume over things, and there you sit upon your throne with the very best that you could possibly offer, waiting to bestow it upon us when we position ourselves in obedience and surrender to you to pour out your blessing upon us. I pray that every person who hears this message would stop and think seriously about their life, where they're headed, what they may have missed, what they don't want to miss, and be wise enough to say, All to Jesus I surrender. All to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him and in his presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, daily live, fully committed, fully surrendered. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of God's Condition for His Full Blessing. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. .