ON THE VANGUARD

SURRENDER
“Don’t’ you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
Romans 6:16

Yesterday I read about the widow that gave it all when she gave into the temple treasury (Mark 12:41-44). Today I want us to share along the same lines, but with a little more of an inside look at ourselves. God seems to use the basic things to drill me with His truth, and as I was reading concerning Twelve Step programs last night, He did it once again. I have been reading a book lately titled, Plan B, by Pete Wilson. While many of the thoughts I share today are what God showed me in reading this section, I do want to give credit where credit is due, and refer to his writing in today’s devotional.
A Twelve Step program is based on twelve steps, amazing I know. Step one is to admit that you have a problem. This problem could be drugs, alcohol, gambling, what have you. Step three, though, points to making a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of a higher being, God. In essence, step three is about surrender. Consider this thought from Pete Wilson when he writes, “If you try to overcome your Plan B, your problem, your junk, your sin, on your own, it will beat you. Surrender your will, humble yourself, as scary as that is, and then another kind of life becomes possible.” Isn’t this other kind of life what we all want? The problem is that this other kind of life hinges on a major if/then statement. If we surrender to God, then we will know this life. But if we chose not to surrender to him, then we can only blame ourselves for where we are.
Let us consider this as we look at our text in Romans 6:16. By offering ourselves to our sin, we become slaves to that sin. It is the purpose of the slave master to beat us and break us down until we are nothing. This lack of identity and purpose leads us to believe that we are only a number or a robot, serving the same ill-treated functions until the day we die. But when we willingly surrender our life to God, our life then takes on a whole new outlook and purpose. When we surrender to God, we place ourselves in a position of being blessed and to know this other kind of life. We can admit all day long that we have a problem, but that problem will not get any better until we make the decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God. On our own, we are weak. Like Pete says, our sin will continue to beat us repeatedly.
I understand I speak of sin and addictions often, but it is only because it is my desire that no one should perish under the weight of sin when there is a way out. God has made a way out from under this weight in the giving of His Son. And now He calls out to you and me to surrender. Surrender, though, is not a onetime thing, but rather a daily thing. Daily I must surrender my day to God. Daily I must surrender my desires to God. And daily I must surrender my heart to God. If I do not, then I am opening myself up to thievery of a slave master whose only desire is my destruction. In the knowledge of this fact, I right now, surrender myself to God again.