By John A. Huffman Jr.
This kind of surrender involves a death struggle.
It is no easy thing. James McConkey, in his book, titled The Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit, writes:
Immediately how the powers of the Flesh will assail this decision! What clamorous protests! What fierce hostility! What agonizing struggles! What deathly swoonings of the soul at the mere thought! What bitter tests of pride and reputation! What sweeping sacrifices loom up unthought of before! The pulpit; the mission field; yielded idols, surrendered professions, or occupations or possessions; how these all start up like spectres before the trembling soul! That day on which a child of God decides to yield his will to God will scarce have passed its meridian ere he will stand appalled at the revelation of his own unwillingness to do God's will; will be astonished and humiliated beyond measure at the desperate and repeated onslaughts of the self-life, to drive him from the new stand he has taken. Just as the frantic cries and wild flutterings of the mother bird prove that your disturbing hand is near her nestlings, so does the passionate resistance of Self to the consecration of your life prove that through that act the self-life is in deadly peril of overthrow under the mighty hand of God.
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A friend of mine, Howard Butt, was once a top executive in a large Texas grocery chain. He left that work to give his life to full-time Christian service. In his book, The Velvet Covered Brick, Howard tells how for years he yearned to surrender his life to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Yet he kept holding on. He said that deep within him was a fear that the minute he surrendered his entire life God would crate him up and ship him off as a missionary to Africa. The one place in the world he did not want to go to, even if it was for God, was Africa!
What he discovered was that God also wasn't the least bit interested in sending him off to Africa. What God wanted to see was whether or not he was willing to go anywhere.
How easy it is for us to put conditions on our surrender. We pray the prayer, "God, you can have everything . . . but ! ! !" There is no substitute for complete surrender. No amount of money. No amount of work in the church. No amount of prayer will take the place of full surrender. Obedience is the key. God wants your everything as " . . . a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
Don't wait for God. He is not going to do it for you. You must take the initiative and yield. Don't say that you have prayed. Don't say that you have waited. Don't say that you have wrestled. Don't say that you have agonized. Don't say that you have believed. The simple question is: "Have you yielded your life fully to Jesus Christ?" Have you taken your hands off of the control levers in your life? Or are you endeavoring to maintain control?
