Surrender

Submission and surrender are beautiful words for Christians. Sadly, somewhere along the line the words have been hijacked so that most people speak of them in a negative tone. They connote timidity and a weak will and are seen as a precursor to being used, abused, and trampled upon.

However, biblical submission and surrender (and they are the same thing) are wonderfully liberating and empowering. In a predictable pattern the world offers freedom and liberation through imposition of one's own will in self-determination while claiming that submission and surrender lead only to captivity.

The truth is that there is glorious freedom to be found in submission.

Imagine talking to Adam and Eve in their final years. The memory of the garden lingers sweet in their minds while the bitter taste of the fruit still drips from their lips. Sin has woven itself around their hearts and lives and they have seen death and suffering and alienation from God and enslavement to sin.

Now imagine asking them, those who can still smell the blooms of the garden, if they regret their decision to pursue the freedom and liberation offered by our cunning adversary. Have them recount the joy of submission to the Lord's command before their insubordination. I imagine that the degree to which sin had failed to erase that memory would correlate directly to their desire to go back in time to change their insubordination into submission.

The true freedom found in their submission can only be regained by accepting Jesus' perfect submission and surrender as our own. This accepting of ours is an act of submission as we lay down our own attempts to be justified or righteous.

Surrender and submission involve a terrifying freedom where we move through fear of judgment into forgiveness. Submission is the act that moves us through through the terror into freedom. We receive grace and mercy when we look beyond the terror of being judged for ourselves and see that we have acceptance and freedom in Christ.