BY STEVE LOO
When the Psalmist prays, “Teach us your ways, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name” (Ps. 86:11) it’s a day by day call to surrender anything in our hearts that prevents us from fearing God’s name.
So what are you surrendering?
We say we want to fear God’s name, to teach us, walk in humility, but what are we daily surrendering to the Lord? Missionaries did not go immediately from believing in Jesus to dying for Jesus. Rather there were many small steps of surrender in between. If I am not daily surrendering my every minute to the Lord and refuse to give him my day, that is not surrender. To say that “this is my day, I’ll do what I want with it” is withholding from God what is rightfully His.
1 Corinthians 6:20 says, “You have been bought with a price; glorify God with your body.” Are you surrendered in your diet? Are you simply just focused on getting the next meal, or are your meals spent with Jesus and in deep community with others? Can you give up a meal at the drop of a hat if you sense God calls you to fast and pray instead? Have you surrendered your daily commute to listening to what God wants to speak to you that morning? When you wake up to your house in a mess, have you surrendered that your hope is not in neatness or perfection, but simply in Christ and His delight of you?
Sometimes I think we are discipled by Facebook more than the Father. Is your screen time at night surrendered to Jesus? Are you fixed on your feed more than what your Father feels when He sees you? What controls you, the latest show on Netflix at night, or the new mercies God promises us in His Word each morning?
As I write this, I’m reminded the Christian life is a daily surrender. And oftentimes it’s not easy. But what we do give up, we gain back something far greater. Jesus said that everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for His name sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life (Matt. 10:29). My small act of surrender today - no matter how small - does matter.