Elijah: A Man Surrendered to Godنموونە

A Life of Surrender

Surrender is a difficult word for men. It goes against everything culture tells us about what makes a man. Cowards surrender. Weak men surrender. We are told to never be anyone else’s man but always be our own man.

Surrender is the reason so many men won’t give their lives to Christ. Surrender means the loss of control, the loss of ownership, the loss of rights. We don’t want to lose control. We don’t want to be owned by anyone. We don’t want to relinquish our rights. We don’t want someone else calling the shots. There may be no word that goes against our cultural idea of manhood more than the word surrender.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “The cross is laid on every Christian. . . . As we embark upon discipleship, we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death . . . When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Meaning, the invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to death. In order to be saved, you must be willing to lay down your life in order to gain His (Matt. 16:25). There is no salvation without the willingness to let go of all authority and all rights and surrender yourself completely to the control of Christ.

And here is the beautiful irony—it is in that death to self that we gain life. The abundant life that Jesus promises us only comes through the death that He demands from us (John 10:10). When we lose our life, we actually gain life. The gospel explains why this must be true.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that we are sinners, separated from God because of our sin, and under the just wrath of God (Rom. 3:23). But God, because of His great love and mercy, sent His Son Jesus Christ to live a sinless life and die a criminal’s death (Eph. 2:4). His death was not for His sin, but for ours (2 Cor. 5:21). And if we will acknowledge our inability to save ourselves and trust in Jesus alone, calling upon His name and asking Him to save us, we can be saved by His death (Rom. 10:13). But that is not the end. Jesus rose again, defeating death, ensuring that we are not only saved by His death, but receive new, abundant, and eternal life by His resurrection.

And all of this—all of this—being saved from death by His death and gaining abundant life through His Spirit—is ours by grace. Meaning, we can’t earn it. In order to receive it, we simply acknowledge that we can’t earn it and ask God to give it to us (Eph. 2:8–9).

Life with Jesus begins with this kind of humility. And it is that humility that is at the heart of surrender. Surrender begins when we acknowledge that we need something we don’t have. But Jesus has it all. And as you trust and follow Him in the continual process of death to self and resurrection life, God makes you into the man He wants you to be. Primarily, a man who is controlled by His Spirit, not self.

You cannot be the man God has called you to be unless you are first and foremost controlled by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit that gives life. It is the Spirit that must lead. It is the Spirit that must bear fruit. But the Spirit only fills those who surrender themselves to His control.

Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 83