Christ-like surrender

15.11.19 | Godwin Sunder

Not my will but yours be done, was the prayer of Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, where even to the point of death, His desire was to please His Father, the one who sent Him, purposed Him to become the sacrificial lamb as a punishment for the sins of the world. Jesus surrendered to the desire of the Fathers heart; God the Father’s desire was that not one should perish, but all be given the opportunity to come to repentance and so He purposed, Jesus’ death and resurrection to become the path to reconcile the creation with the Creator.

As humans, we desire to receive recognition of our superiors and sometimes we do it either consciously or unconsciously at the cost of someone else’s expense; we desire that our peers would like us and in doing so we may allow ourselves to compromise our faith and values; we are tempted and at times succumb to the desires of the flesh, the eyes, and the mind. “Desire” is God-given, and it is wonderful but when ‘Desire’ conforms to become lust for power, self-worth and self-satisfaction, we have fallen away.

No matter how long one has been a follower of Christ, the act of surrender is not a one-time action but a daily, a conscious act of choice to give up the desires of the self to please the heart of the God Almighty, who knows the heart of each individual – “For I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deed,”” (Jer. 17.10) no wonder Solomon says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.”” (Prov. 4.23) Jeremiah too, emphasises the condition of our hearts – “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17.9)
ONLY GOD knows our hearts!

What does a Christ-like ‘Surrender’ look like? “… who, though was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2.6-8) It is the ultimate ‘Desire’ to please God and God alone. The Westminster Catechism defines the purpose of mankind as this: ‘The chief-end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever’. Within this definition we see no reference to the “I” or the “Self” but rather it is the lifting up of our eyes from staring down at our belly buttons, to the creator who can satisfy every need of our lives, forgive every short-comings of the past, the present and the future and exhorts us to “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt. 6.33) Thus by glorifying and enjoying Him, do we exemplify the art of Surrender.

Amen!

Christ-like surrender

Godwin Sunder

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