The heart of worship is SURRENDER. Surrender is an un-popular word, disliked almost as much as the word submission. It implies losing, and no one wants to be a loser. Surrender invokes the un-pleasant images of admitting defeat in battle, forfeiting a game, or yielding to a stronger opponent. The word is almost always used in a negative context. For example, captured criminals SURRENDER to authorities.
In today’s competitive culture, we are taught to never give up and never give in – so we don’t hear much about surrendering. If winning is everything, surrendering is un-thinkable. We’d rather talk about winning succeeding, overcoming and conquering than yielding, submitting, obeying and surrendering. But surrendering to God is the heart of worship. It is the natural response to God’s love and mercy. We give ourselves to Him not out of fear or duty, but in love, “because He first loved us.” 1John 4:19
After spending eleven chapters of the book of Romans explaining God’s incredible grace to us, Paul urges us to fully surrender our lives to God in worship: “So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us…offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship you should offer.” Romans 12:1
True worship – bringing God pleasure – happens when you give yourself completely to God. Notice the first and last words of that verse are the same: offer. Offering yourself to God is what it’s all about. The act of personal surrender is called many things: consecration, making Jesus your Lord, taking up your cross, dying to self, yielding to the spirit. What matters is that you do it, not what you call it. God wants your life. All of it. 95% is not enough.
There are three barriers that block our total surrender to God” Fear (we don’t realize how much God loves us), Pride (we want to control our own lives) and Confusion (we misunderstand the meaning of surrender).
