Unconditional Surrender

As a Christian, what does God want from me?
The Lord does not want anything from me. He wants…ALL OF ME. Fully, completely and unconditionally surrendered to His good, acceptable and perfect will.
“My Utmost For His Highest” has been the number one best selling Christian devotional for the past one hundred years. Written by Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) it is rich with scriptural treasure based on the Bible’s truth and principles. When you read Chambers devotions you feel you are drinking from the bottomless well of God’s wisdom.
I highly fully endorse and highly recommend every Christian read, study, meditate upon and apply the timeless teachings of “My Utmost For His Highest.”
While I was reading his October 23rd devotion entitles “Not A Bit of it!”, the Lord put on my heart to share it with you. Chambers uses some archaic terms of his day which I kind of like. But you will get the picture he is painting.
So here it is.
“Not A Bit Of It!”
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away.” II Corinthians 5:17
The Lord never nurses our prejudices. He mortifies them, runs clean athwart them. We imagine God has a special interest in our particular prejudices; we are quite sure that God will never deal with as He has to deal with other people. “God must deal with other people in a very stern way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are quite all right.”
We have to learn-----“Not a bit of it!”. Instead of God being on the side or our prejudices, He is deliberating wiping them out.
It is part of our moral education to have our prejudices run straight across by His providence, and to watch how He does it.
God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us and that is our unconditional surrender.
When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is not a bit of the old order left; the old solemnity goes, the old attitude to things goes, and “all things are of God.”
How are we going to get the life that has no lust, no self-interest, no sensitivity to pokes, the love that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that is always kind? The only way is by not allowing a bit of the old life to be left; but only simple, perfect trust in God, such trust that we no longer want God’s blessings, but only God Himself.
Have we come to the place where God can withdraw His blessings and it does not affect our trust in Him? When once we see God at work, we will never bother our heads about things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in Heaven Whom the world cannot trust.
When I read this and let it soak in, it is as if the Holy Spirit lowered (lovingly of course) the boom on Steve.
I have chewed and prayed over this for days. Am I fully, unconditionally surrendered to Jesus? I have been a Christian for nearly fifty years. Thinking I have been all His. I believe I am according to the Word of God. But that question of coming to the place where God can withdraw His blessings would not affect my faith? That is one to not take light.
Jesus gave His all for me on the Cross. Have I given my all to Him? Have I denied myself, taken up my cross and followed Him wholeheartedly without reservation? Has Steve surrendered everything to the One I call my Lord and Savior?
The Holy Spirit is working me over. It is a good thing. I will come out on the side where Jesus is everything and I am who and what I am because of Him.
How about you? Has this devotional poked your spirit? Challenged you to take inventory of your relationship with the Lord when it comes to unconditional surrender?
God loves us you and me so much that He does not want anything from us but our unconditional love, undivided devotion and joyful obedience.
Let’s do this. You pray for me and I will pray for you that we will come to grips with unconditional surrender to God and go forward with faith as more than mighty conquerors in Jesus. So be it!  
“Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on yielding, presenting the members of your body to sin and unrighteousness; but yield, present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members of instruments of righteousness to God.” Romans 6:12-13
A Word For Your Week: Trusting God means fully surrendering to Him.