Surrendering Your Life to Jesus

I have often heard it mentioned that I should "surrender my life to Jesus."

Jesus does call us to completely surrender to Him. You may already "believe" in Jesus, but this is far more than merely that. Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." This may seem like a lot to demand of a person, but let me explain the situation.

Say you have committed murder and stand before a judge (for those of you who say you have never murdered, keep in mind God's Word says that if we so much as "hate" another, we are murderers at heart [1 John 3:15]) . The verdict rendered against you is guilty. Your judgment is either a fine of a million dollars (if you happen to have a million dollars, make this an amount you could never pay- a billion, or trillion dollars) or life in jail.

You don't have a million dollars and the only option left is to serve your sentence in jail. The judge asks you if you have anything to say for yourself, and you say "But, judge, I'm such a good person. I've done more good than bad." The judge says, "That may be true, but even so, justice still needs to be served."

The judge is about to slam the gavel down and render judgment when someone walks into the court room and says, "Judge, I've sold everything I owned and I have come up with a million dollars." He places the million dollars in front of the judge and the judge looks at you and says, "You are free to go. Not because you are innocent, not because you are 'good,' but because your fine has been paid." That is what Jesus did for us. He paid the fine for our sins through His life's blood on the cross.

How would you feel towards that person? You would owe him everything, including your life. That is what we owe Jesus. He laid down His life for our sins and bore death upon Himself on the cross. He calls on us to repent (turn from our sins) and place our trust in Him. How selfish of us to give Him anything less than everything. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price."

Luke 9:59-62: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

When you surrender your life to Jesus, you have to completely abandon your old ways and not look back. Jesus tells us that if we look back, we are not fit for the kingdom of God. At one point, I thought I had surrendered my life to Jesus, but I realized I was far from it. I believed Jesus was my savior and I repented of some of the sins- the ones I was comfortable with. There were sins I thought I couldn’t overcome- and as long as I thought that- I never did.

When you surrender your life to Jesus, you need to repent of all your sins- not just the ones you are comfortable with. It will be different for each of us- perhaps for you it is lust, dirty language, dirty TV shows and movies, gossiping, lying, coveting, and the list goes on.

Someone recently posted this in a discussion on my Facebook wall: "I think that everyone has some kind of sin in their life that they don't want to give up, as you said Jesus died for us and our sins implying that we are all sinners, I think this is human nature." This is true for a lot of people- there are sins standing in between them and their Savior. This does not negate our responsibility to repent, though. It all comes back to what Jesus did on the cross for us. We are not our own anymore, and our sin is pure selfishness in the sight of God. We owe our lives to someone who sacrificed His for us, yet we continue to rebel.

John 14:15-17 says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

I hope you know how amazing it is to have the Holy Spirit dwelling among you. Jesus tells us we can know the Holy Spirit. He also tells us how to receive the Holy Spirit: keep His commandments. If you repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior, He will send the Holy Spirit to dwell among you. If there is sin in your life you refuse to repent of, do not be surprised when the Holy Spirit is not sent to dwell among you.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “When once God the Holy Spirit applies the Law to the conscience, secret sins are dragged to light, little sins are magnified to their true size, and things apparently harmless become exceedingly sinful. Before that dread searcher of the hearts and trier of the reins makes His entrances into the soul, it appears righteous, just, lovely, and holy; but when He reveals the hidden evils, the scene is changed. Offenses which were once styled peccadilloes, trifles, freaks of youth, follies, indulgences, little slips, etc., then appear in the true color, as breaches of the Law of God, deserving condign punishment.”

Luke 17:33 says: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” If you seek to hold on to your life and control it, you will lose it, but if you surrender your life to Jesus, you will gain eternal life.

Once you give your life to Jesus, you won’t have any more decisions to make- they are all up to God. If there are decisions in your life you want to remain in control of or sin you will not repent of, please surrender your life completely to Jesus Christ. For me, the hardest thing to give up was offensive TV shows and songs. I have a "blasphemy rule" for the TV and radio. Whenever I hear the Lord's name taken in vain, I turn the TV off. I sometimes allow it when I hear it on the news due to the nature of the programming (it is reporting), but I generally make it a point not to even watch TV to begin with because nothing (not even PBS- cable got the ax long ago) is safe.

I want to make this a personal challenge to everyone to replace their TV time with Bible reading. The average American watches 5 hours of TV a day. This may sound like a lot, but it easily adds up. I know people who like to rewind in front of TV every night for 2 hours from 8 to 10. Imagine if you took all the time you watch TV and spent it reading the Bible. You will be amazed at how much reading you can do.

The other thing I have found is that my mind used to be filled with useless information about what happened the previous night on all the TV shows I watched. Not only that, but I was also recalling all the previous information from episodes prior to that.

Imagine if instead of recalling last night's TV shows, you were recalling God's Word. This is, in fact, what Jesus calls us to do. Jesus said in John 15: 7-8, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." By abiding in the Word, you will glorify the Father!