Hello, hello! It’s time for Day 3 of our Drawing Close to God in Prayer Challenge!
Yesterday, we spent a good bit of time in confession and repentance.
Well, with confession and repentance comes a desire to surrender anew to God’s will and His ways.
Surrender
I never really understood what “surrender” was (spiritually speaking) until several years ago during a season of trial in my life.
My husband received a dreaded cancer diagnosis and then a short time later, he lost his job.
As I look back, it’s fascinating to me that God taught me so much about surrender during a time when I actually hadn’t surrendered anything. We didn’t give up my husband’s health voluntarily, nor did we choose to give up his job.
Both were taken from us.
But the amazing thing is that when we accepted this truth, bowing our knee to Him as our Master and choosing to live like He’s in charge, He poured out even greater blessings.
I’m learning that surrender isn’t a once-and-for-all kind of proposition. It’s not a one-time deal. I have to keep on surrendering. Keep on bowing the knee. And keep on choosing to live like He’s always in charge.
Because He is.
Prayers of Surrender
- Pray for God’s daily grace to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. Acknowledge to Him that whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will save it. (Luke 9:23-24) Share with Jesus that you won’t withhold anything – including your very life – from Him.
- Ponder the truth that you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Share with God your desire to glorify Him in your body and in your spirit, since they belong to Him (1 Corinthians 6:20).
- Confess to the Lord that all of your material and non-material blessings are gifts meant to be stewarded well, with the intention of multiplying them for the Master. Ask that the Lord would mold you into a faithful servant, and not a worthless one. (Matthew 25:14-30)
- Praise the Lord that the earth is His, with its fullness, the world and all who dwell in it. (Psalm 24:1) Ask Him to impress this truth on your heart, and to help you live accordingly.
- Contemplate God’s promise to bless Abraham so that he would be a blessing to others. (Genesis 12:2) Pray that God would show you how He wants to apply this in your own life.
Heavenly Father, thank You for being worthy of my trust and worthy of my surrender. How kind You are to entrust gifts to my stewardship so that I can joyfully offer them back to You in worship! Please keep me humble and help me remember that everything I have and everything I am are from You, and that my reasonable response to such grace is to place it all on the altar of sacrifice. In the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.
Click here to navigate to the main page, and scroll toward the bottom to find Day 4 of the challenge.
