God at Work

“for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:13

There is no doubt that God expects absolute and full surrender from us. God claims it from us, and He has the right to demand it from us. And though He wants to do great things in and through our lives, he cannot work with a half surrendered heart.

Imagine the pen in our pocket, and because the pen belongs to us, that pen must be absolutely surrendered to our hand if we are to write with it. If another holds it partly, we cannot write the way we want to write.

Similarly, we belong to God for His purpose, and unless He has full control over us, He won’t be able to use us the way he wants.

At the same time, God is not asking us to give the perfect surrender in our strength, or by the power of our will. Instead, it is God who accomplishes our surrender to him, and that is what we learn from our above passage “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure”.

We grieve the Holy Spirit by trying to accomplish absolute surrender by our self-will, self-confidence and self-effort. We have to learn to cast this self-life and flesh-life at the feet of Jesus and trust Him to accomplish it for us.

Brothers & sisters, let us learn to trust in our Saviour, let loose the firm grip we have on our strength, wisdom and abilities, and let him take reign of our lives.

Lord, forgive us for putting our trust on our corrupt and rotten flesh in accomplishing absolute surrender to you, instead, help us lean on you and in your strength and power.