1 Peter 5:6-7 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Surrender is a battle term. It implies giving up all rights to the conqueror. When an opposing army surrenders, they lay down their arms, and the winners take control of everything. Surrendering to God works the same way, but the battle happens between the Spirit (indwelling gift from God) and the flesh (the natural man)!
Surrendering all to God means to yield ownership, to relinquish control over what we consider ours: our property, our time, our rights our will, our affections, our bodies, and our lives. Our own pleasures and happiness can no longer be primary goals. God demands a "total cling" to Him---not anyone else. He doesn't want us to depend on anyone or anything but Him!
Full surrender of everything to God requires you to convey your desire to be free from the worry and the cares of this life. You must verbalize to Him what you are committing to Him. Communicate to God in prayer all that you want to surrender.
Surrendering all to God after you have conveyed your cares to Him means entrusting all that you are to Him. Entrusting something to someone means you have placed that person in a legal position of guardianship over something that belongs to you. God becomes your trustee. You can believe He will look out for your best interests as He carefully guards your cares and concerns. He'll protect your interests and do whatever is best for you. The key to entrusting is leaving the cares with God and allowing Him to remain the trustee.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden." The word "labor" means you are under the inward effort of trying to overcome either a thought or feeling, or trying to deal with a certain environment. That is you laboring, not the work of Christ in you. There is a standard in your mind of what you know you should be, and then there is the real you. When you start comparing the real you with the standard, you immediately begin toiling and laboring over your condition and you can’t get the real you to meet the higher standard. This can only happen when you give up your personal quest and allow “Christ in you the hope of Glory” to bring you up to the standard of God!
"Heavy laden" means this is a state or chronic condition that one lives with. Jesus is saying, "Come to Me, all you who are in the middle of a chronic condition." You are living in a state of being weighed down because of the accumulation of cares, anxieties, and accusations that have piled up on you under your system. It is a system that relies upon itself, that is expecting something from itself that it cannot produce. It is expecting a better performance or a better track record. When you do not meet up to your expectations, you are disappointed, and the result is that you are weighed down. It weighs you down because you are operating in a system of self-expectation.
This happens because we take our personal background issues and filter it through a system that is designed to fail. This failing system accumulates all our waste such as; failures, hurts, disappointments, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness and anything that doesn’t produce the fruits of the Spirit.
Bottom Line; we cannot surrender to God until we are completely ready to give up all that we are for Christ’s sake. Galatians 2:20 says: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Such a life of surrender is pleasing to God. When we surrender, it results in the greatest of life’s fulfillment, and it allows you to reap ultimate rewards here on earth and for all eternity!
Surrender is a battle term. It implies giving up all rights to the conqueror. When an opposing army surrenders, they lay down their arms, and the winners take control of everything. Surrendering to God works the same way, but the battle happens between the Spirit (indwelling gift from God) and the flesh (the natural man)!
Surrendering all to God means to yield ownership, to relinquish control over what we consider ours: our property, our time, our rights our will, our affections, our bodies, and our lives. Our own pleasures and happiness can no longer be primary goals. God demands a "total cling" to Him---not anyone else. He doesn't want us to depend on anyone or anything but Him!
Full surrender of everything to God requires you to convey your desire to be free from the worry and the cares of this life. You must verbalize to Him what you are committing to Him. Communicate to God in prayer all that you want to surrender.
Surrendering all to God after you have conveyed your cares to Him means entrusting all that you are to Him. Entrusting something to someone means you have placed that person in a legal position of guardianship over something that belongs to you. God becomes your trustee. You can believe He will look out for your best interests as He carefully guards your cares and concerns. He'll protect your interests and do whatever is best for you. The key to entrusting is leaving the cares with God and allowing Him to remain the trustee.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden." The word "labor" means you are under the inward effort of trying to overcome either a thought or feeling, or trying to deal with a certain environment. That is you laboring, not the work of Christ in you. There is a standard in your mind of what you know you should be, and then there is the real you. When you start comparing the real you with the standard, you immediately begin toiling and laboring over your condition and you can’t get the real you to meet the higher standard. This can only happen when you give up your personal quest and allow “Christ in you the hope of Glory” to bring you up to the standard of God!
"Heavy laden" means this is a state or chronic condition that one lives with. Jesus is saying, "Come to Me, all you who are in the middle of a chronic condition." You are living in a state of being weighed down because of the accumulation of cares, anxieties, and accusations that have piled up on you under your system. It is a system that relies upon itself, that is expecting something from itself that it cannot produce. It is expecting a better performance or a better track record. When you do not meet up to your expectations, you are disappointed, and the result is that you are weighed down. It weighs you down because you are operating in a system of self-expectation.
This happens because we take our personal background issues and filter it through a system that is designed to fail. This failing system accumulates all our waste such as; failures, hurts, disappointments, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness and anything that doesn’t produce the fruits of the Spirit.
Bottom Line; we cannot surrender to God until we are completely ready to give up all that we are for Christ’s sake. Galatians 2:20 says: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Such a life of surrender is pleasing to God. When we surrender, it results in the greatest of life’s fulfillment, and it allows you to reap ultimate rewards here on earth and for all eternity!
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