Tender Surrender

“Allowing God to take the lead so you can be led through your own life takes humility and surrender. We need to come to a place where we realise we do not know it all. I wish I did know it all. I honestly do, but I don’t and neither do you. God does, however.” That’s from last week. I was thinking about this. Sometimes we struggle with surrender not because we don’t want to surrender but because we lack the humility to do it.

Surrender is an admission that we don’t have all the answers. It is also an act of faith. To get to that place of surrender, we must be humble. What does the Bible say about humility?

1 Peter 5:6 says, “So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.” James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.”

Matthew 23:12 says, “But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The above verses paint the same picture, when we humble ourselves before God, God will lift us up. The word used for “lift you up” in the other translations is the word “exalt”. That word in the Greek means to lift high or exalt. It also means to raise to the very summit of opulence and prosperity and to raise to dignity, honor and happiness. Yes, I had to look up the word opulence and it means wealth, prosperity and affluence.

We know that when the Bible talks prosperity it doesn’t just mean $$$ in the bank. It includes health, good relationships, peace, joy, love, healing on every level and everything else in relation to life. Last week we looked at how God takes us from chaos and brings order into our lives. Being humble actually sets us up for God to move things around on our behalf and set things straight. He raises dignity, honor and happiness in our lives.

So when God asks us to humble ourselves, it is not because He is looking for room to tower over us. He is God. Whether we humble ourselves or not does not change who He is. However, it changes us. It brings us from a place of uncertainty to a place of certainty. When we humble ourselves before God, we can rest assured that God will be true to His word. He is faithful to His word to perform it. If He says when we humble ourselves He will lift us up, He means it. Question is, do we believe Him? If we did we’d have no trouble being humble. But on some level we must be scared of being short changed.

But God is not like that. He is not deceitful. He does not say one thing and do something different. He has a made up mind. When we do what His word says, He will do what His word says He will do. So humility has a lot to do with faith. We need to be able to believe God. We need to be able to believe what His word says. Matthew 24:35 says, “The earth and sky will wear out and fade away before one word I speak loses its power or fails to accomplish its purpose.” God’s word in unmovable (steadfast) and immutable (it does not change).

For us to get to a place of true surrender we must be willing to be humble before God. The word used for humble in Matthew 23:12 is defined in the Strong’s Definitions as, “of one’s soul- bring down one’s pride, to have a modest opinion of one’s self, to behave in an unassuming manner or devoid of all haughtiness [which is arrogance, conceit, pride, superiority]”, [words in brackets are mine].

If we want God on our side working things out for our good we need to learn to be humble. James 4:6 says, “But He continues to pour out more and more grace upon us. For it says, “God resists you when you are proud but continually pours out grace when you are humble.”” If we want the grace to surrender and let God be God in our lives, we need to become humble.

I’ll leave you with this, Proverbs 22:4 TPT says, “Laying your life down in tender surrender before the Lord will bring life, prosperity, and honor as your reward.” Other versions instead of surrender use the word “humility”. We can’t have surrender without humility. Surrender is not forced, it is a choice.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano