True Christianity could be summed up in one phrase: Absolute surrender to the will of God for our lives. In Part 1 of our short series based on Andrew Murray's book "Absolute Surrender," we'll talk about what it looks like to fully yield our wills to God.

Host: Kathy, it's great to see you. Thanks for stopping by to talk with us.

Kathy: Thanks. It's good to be here.

Host: We want to begin a series of discussions in a little book called, Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. We won't go into a lot of depth about Andrew. He was well known as an evangelist, a writer and as a preacher in the late 1800s. But he just had a deep sense of the things of God and a wonderful way of communicating them. Absolute Surrender is not only the title of the book, but it's also the title of the first chapter in the book. So, let's just talk a little bit about how he starts things off. He actually did that with a story from the Old Testament.

Kathy: Yeah, he started off telling a story about Ben-hadad when he besieged Israel and took everything. He took the men, the women, the children—everything. And the king of Israel said, and I love these words that he's saying to an enemy invader, “My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have.” (1 Kings 20:4b, KJV) And Andrew Murray used that quote from 1 Kings to describe what our surrender to God should look like. I and all that I have are yours.

Host: He goes on to share a story about a time when he was in Scotland where he asked one individual who was a trainer of church workers what the greatest need of the church was and that individual said, “Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.” And that is so true. The most needful thing, above all is an absolutely surrendered heart to God.

Kathy: Yeah, I think it's overlooked a lot. In fact, I know it is ignored. Absolute surrender is a very difficult concept to wrap your mind around. I know when I was a young believer and I was reading books like this one I’d get so excited! I wanted to completely surrender, and I thought that I could do it, and yet I experienced continual failure to follow through.

Host: Yea. It's so contrary to how we operate by nature.

Kathy: Of course, and nothing in Christianity happens all at once. Everything happens by progress. It's such a journey. I used to try to ram down people's throats that they needed to surrender everything. And then when I started running up against the wall myself when it came to surrender, I saw that I needed to back off and be a little more gentle with people, because it doesn't just happen. Our will and our desire should be, “Yes Lord, I want to completely surrender to you, but I know I can't do this in the flesh.”

Host: Yeah. Well, we're going to look at some different aspects of surrender. Andrew Murray does really segment this very nicely. So, let's just go through some of the sections that he lays out here. He starts off by talking about the fact that God does expect our surrender.

Kathy: Absolutely. What we do know about Him commands and demands that we absolutely surrender to Him. He is the King. He doesn't allow for half-hearted surrender. He wants all or nothing.

Host: Yea. In this first section of the chapter, God expects our surrender, he talks about the gravity of who God is. All you have to do is go out on a clear cold night and look up into the heavens and stand in awe. And then you realize that as human beings, we are the only ones in the entire universe that would ever even think to question surrendering to God. That's an astounding thing.

Kathy: It is. And he uses the example of how flowers and nature bends itself to God and does what they were created to do. But the big divider in a sense is that we have a will and those other things are created. Also, we were all born with the knowledge of God, so the expectation for us is enormous in light of that.

Host: Alright. Now we are going to get to the aspect that it is God who accomplishes our surrender. Now, that seems like an oxymoron. How can someone else accomplish my surrender and it still be surrender?

Kathy: I think that for us who are sincere about the journey that we're on as Christians, we want the Lord. And I'm going to go on the assumption that the listeners really want Him. I have to go on that assumption, because I don’t have time to go off on rabbit trails. So, with that in mind, you have this desire in you, but you also have this failure right alongside the desire. You have the constant struggles of wanting to completely give over to God and completely lay down your will.

       God knows that's in us, and I believe the Lord puts that in us. He gives us that desire at our new birth. But He also knows that in our flesh dwells no good thing. We cannot accomplish this surrender on our own. God knows that. He's not blind. He's completely aware of how weak we are, how feeble we are and how incapable we are of doing this.

Host: Yea. Really what He's asking us to do is to surrender and yield to Him as He works the process of surrender in us. But He is still the one that does it.

Kathy: He is the one that does it. He’s working it out and He's putting the desire in us. We do our part by saying yes inside. And there are times when we have to actually say no to ourselves. There are times when we have to actually go against what's natural to us. But that's not how it gets accomplished.

       I know for myself that I spent a lot of time trying to be a good Christian and I don't believe the Lord is holding that or has held that against me. But I look back on it now and I realize that I can't be a Christian in the flesh. But if I walk in the Spirit, if I’m abiding in His presence and in His Spirit, then He's accomplishing those things that are making me a better Christian. And I have been baptized into the Holy Spirit and He lives in me. This God is living in me and this God is enabling me to live this miraculous life of surrender. So, it's just all a big journey. God is working it all out in us all.

Host: It is a journey. The Scripture also says that it is God that works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Kathy: Yeah, and that's wonderful news. I love that because it is His will. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. We just need to be yielded vessels, wanting and desiring Him to do that process.

Host: Yeah. And that is the requirement, that we be yielded. And that's the only requirement really that He asks of us. To be yielded to what He wants to do and what He’s promised to do.