Unconditional Surrender - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, August 4th. Most of us don't like to give up control and will fight to keep even the illusion of power. But for a truly satisfying life, God has to be in charge. Here's today's podcast to explain unconditional surrender. When you not trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, that wasn't the end.

That wasn't even His goal. His goal is that you and I would live unconditionally, surrender to Him every day of our life. I'm not going to tell you it's easy to make a full surrender of your life to Him, to tell Him, Lord, whatever you want is what I want. It's painful. It's difficult. It's hard sometimes. And even after you do it, it's difficult and painful. Sometimes it demands a sacrifice to unconditionally tell Him, unconditionally just lay it, give it all to Him. Because we naturally have our wills and our wants and our desires and our plans.

There's nothing wrong with that, as long as they fit into God's will and God's plan, which is always best. But there'll be times when He will require of us something that we do not want to give up. Now, I want you to think about this before we talk about how to do it. I want you to think about a fourfold promise that belongs to every single one of us.

And please listen carefully. And please, my friend, be honest with yourself for just a few moments. Because I don't know what it is that God's put His finger on in your life and He's waiting for you to unconditionally surrender, but you've not done it yet.

And you've explained it away and you already know what it is. So, oh, God, I'll do anything in the world you want me to do, but I can't handle that. And God says, yes, you can.

You know what, every time I've ever told God I couldn't do something, that's what I hear. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. And sure enough, you know what I discovered? Yes, I could.

Every single time. When you say, oh, God, I can't do anything God tells us to do, yes, we can. I don't know what it is that God's put His finger on, but I do know this.

Yes, you can. Now listen, here's what you and I are forfeiting with our little desires over here and our little plans and what we're going to do, none of which is right, none of, listen, and none of which is the best that God wouldn't be dealing with us about it. Here's what we do. With that little thing over here that we're not willing to give up, here's what we're willing to sacrifice. Because here's what God offers. When a person makes an unconditional surrender of their life and all that relates in them to Jesus Christ, no restrictions, draw no lines, no bargaining, no arguments, total surrender, here's what happens. When a person does that, they position themselves for God's maximum blessing. That is, because you have totally surrendered yourself to Him, then He can bless you any way He wants to and as much as He wants to.

And there's nothing to keep Him from blessing you. Maximum blessing. The second thing that's in that hand is maximum usefulness. When you are totally unconditionally surrendered to Christ, there's nothing in your life that keeps you from being used to the maximum of your potential. The third thing that's in that hand is maximum intimate fellowship. When you are unconditionally surrendered to Jesus Christ, there's nothing in your life to keep you from being intimately to the maximum of your potential being related to Jesus Christ.

Does that sound pretty good so far? Maximum blessing, maximum usefulness before God, maximum intimate fellowship with Him, and the fourth thing in that hand is maximum power of the Holy Spirit. That is because there's nothing to obstruct the flow of the Spirit of God in your life.

The Holy Spirit will flow through your life and work in your life and make an impact through your life that will never be able to happen as long as there's an area of rebellion. Now look at this. Look over here at this puny little thing you've been holding on to. It may be that you have it that you won't tie, not that you can't, won't. You need to get those words right. Can't and won't. There are a lot of things I say I can't, the truth is I won't.

Let me ask you a question. Are you carrying on a relationship that's putting static in your relationship to Christ? And every time you get down to pray you know it's not right? Are you spending God's money on something that brings you some form of pleasure and security when you know it belongs to God? Are you staying in a job that you have because you want the security of it rather than doing what God wants you to do? If you don't do what God says do when God says do it is an act of rebellion. It doesn't make any difference how we color it up. It's rebellion. You mean to tell me, well now when I was saved I know I was saved but I've not been baptized and I just don't think you have to be baptized to go to heaven.

Right? But you have to be baptized to be obedient to God and you have to be baptized to be unconditionally surrendered to God. Or listen, or he would not have said listen Jesus was baptized and in the Great Commission he said we're to baptize who of we are exceptions to the call of God to give public testimony that we have died to our old way have been buried in Christ and risen to walk in newness of life. Man you can color it up and you can say I'm afraid of the water. We'll get you over that. Somebody says well but you know I don't know that I have it's not on my schedule you better get it on there. You can give a thousand reasons for not obeying God not a single one of them is acceptable in the eyes of God. And here's what I want you to see a lot of praying that goes on never even gets as high as the ceiling in this sanctuary. You say oh God answers my prayers. You mean God answers your prayers and you're over here living in rebellion here, indifference here, excusing here, counterfeiting here, disobeying God here and you think God's answering your prayers?

No he's not. You say look at all the good things that have happened to me do you know why? Read Romans chapter 2. He says know you not that the goodness of God is for the purpose of leading you to repent of your sins and to get right with God. Listen one of the expressions of the grace of God is his goodness in order to get our attention to get us to get right with him.

Listen to me carefully God knows I love you. Do you know what it's costing the kingdom of God for folks like us to live with a conditioned restricted commitment to Jesus Christ. It is costing millions of souls. It is costing the kingdom of God billions and billions and billions of dollars that could be used in ministry.

It is costing people not to be taught not to be trained because too many of God's people had rather sit and explain it away and draw a line and say this is all I'm going to do. Listen carefully you cannot deliberately willfully disobey God over here in one area without it becoming two. Without it spilling over into three and over into four and over into five and that's why it is dangerous to come to church and listen to the truth and willfully deliberately rationalize your disobedience and walk away. Listen that is dangerous because what happens is any area that I have a deliberate willful area of disobedience is going to multiply unless I deal with it. Now I don't know about you but there have been some times when I was a little late surrendering and the pressure got so great I wanted to hold up a bed sheet and say God don't miss it.

Don't miss it. But just that's because I was unwilling to be obedient to Him when He first brought it up and God knows how to put the pressure on us. Now how do you make full surrender? Now listen this is so simple.

Before I tell you how let me just say this. You know that that's a pen. My daughter gave me that nice pen and the reason she gave it to me is because she knew that I needed one to write. So this pen writes that's what it's for. So suppose this pen said I'm willing to look good but I'm not willing to write. I'll feel good. I fit your hand well.

I'll look good. I'll remain full of ink but I'm not going to write. You know what I'd do with this pen after a while I'd just go, except that it has personal value because of who gave it to me. But if it were just a pen I'd throw it in the garbage. Because that's what you do. I'll give you an example. When you buy a little cheap plastic pen and finally it's all written out, what do you do? You toss it in the trash. Why?

Because it ceased doing the thing for which it was made. Now let me ask you a question. Now listen to me carefully. God knows I want you to get this. Do you realize how patient God has been with all of us all these years that we have not done what he created us for? And that's to serve him and to live for him and to honor him and to glorify him by the life that we've lived.

You toss plastic pens in the garbage can. God in His grace waits. The only difference is this. There's going to come a time when time runs out and waiting's over. And some of you are going to live your life.

Years and years and years and years of your life are going to go by. And the very thing God created you for, you will never do. How do I make unconditional surrender? First of all, number one, I recognize that God has the right to require that of me.

No more arguments. Secondly, I make a deliberate, willful decision and say to Him, however you want to say it, Lord Jesus, I surrender all control of my life to you, body, soul and spirit, and everything that relates to me in order that you may have your way in my life with no exceptions, no conditions, no restrictions, period. No bargaining. The third thing that I do is that I cease all quarreling with God. We quarrel about what we don't want to yield. All the quarreling's over. No more arguments with God. Yes, Lord.

Yes. I cease all quarreling. All the quarreling's over. No bargaining. No quarreling. The next thing I do is to be willing to receive, listen, to be willing to receive what He wants to give me.

Now look at this. Surrender, unconditional surrender isn't just giving up. It is being willing to receive everything He wants me to have. It may be that He wants to bless you financially. Are you willing to receive that? It may be a wonderful privilege that He wants to grant to you. Are you willing to receive that? It may be a position of authority that will demand of you and require discipline of you in order to accomplish it. Are you willing to receive that?

Now listen to this one. It may be that He wants to give you love. He wants you to experience love. He wants you to feel love. He wants you to know love. Are you willing to receive that? You say, what's that got to do with unconditional surrender?

I'll tell you exactly what it has to do with it. Until I am willing to deal with old, dirty, nasty, sinful, selfish self, I cannot love nor feel nor experience true, genuine, free-flowing love. And the reason some people can't love, they can't receive it because they've got so much garbage in their life and they're holding on to garbage and missing the blessing and the intimacy and the power and the usefulness over here. You see, if I really want to be able to love, develop my intimacy with Jesus Christ and it enables me and increases my capacity to love. But I may have to give up surrender, choose death to, some attitudes, anger, bitterness, resentment, hostilities that I've hung on to over here because I've been mistreated in the past. Am I willing to give up the ugly, awful, painful, agonizing feelings of anger and hostility in order to receive God's wonderful, indescribable love? I must be willing to receive what He has for me, the fullness of the Spirit. Next, I must be willing to accept my unconditional surrender by faith. Lord, I choose to do it as an act of my will.

I thank You that it's done. No feelings, no feelings are guaranteed. You may be joyful or you may feel pain.

Forget the feelings. All of those things are essential if I am to be truly, totally surrendered and then the last thing is I will do these in absolute dependence upon the Holy Spirit because I cannot do it myself. Friend, there'll be some things that you may have to deal with that only by the power of the Holy Spirit can you deal with them.

Now, let me remind you of two things quickly. Number one, while there is an initial, absolute, unconditional surrender of your life to Jesus Christ, at some point in your life where you say, Lord, this is it, there will be times throughout your life where you will again have to unconditionally surrender something that comes up in your life. But there's something about that first time that you really take in all of life and say, all right, Lord, it's all Yours. Unconditional, whatever you want, wherever you want it, however you want it.

I don't have any idea, but here I am. And then what happens? Day by day we live in that surrender. That's why He says in First John one seven, not that we are perfect, we will sin against Him at times and there will be times when we'll be hit on the blind side by the devil and we'll want what we want until the Spirit of God says, but that's not what you can have.

This is better. That's why He says, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son is continuously cleansing us from all sin and making it possible for us to live unconditionally surrendered to Him. It is that simple, but not that simple because sometimes it can be very painful. Now let me ask you this one question, it's all over.

I know that you already know what it is that He wants to deal with. It may be something very, very small. And remember this, if you think about what you're holding on to, first of all, it's not eternal. Secondly, you could lose it in a split second. I don't care what it is. So it's not permanent, it's not eternal, it's not even for certain. You can't really be sure about it. Are you willing to hold on to that and forsake maximum blessing, maximum usefulness, maximum intimacy, and maximum power from God?

For me, no way would I hold on to that when I can have God's very, very, very best. Thank you for listening to part two of Unconditional Surrender. 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.