Lesson 10: A life of absolute surrender, part 2
 
1 Peter 2:4-5 - As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

 Here comes the terrible mistake that lies at the bottom of so much of our own religion. A man thinks: “I have my business and family duties, and my relations as a citizen, and all this I cannot change. And now alongside all this I am to take in the service of God, as something that will keep me from sin. God help me to perform my duties properly!"

 That is not right. When Christ came, He came and bought the sinner with His blood. If there was a slave-market here and I were to buy a slave, I should take that slave away to my own house from his old surroundings, and he would live at my house as my personal property, and I could order him about all the day. And if he were a faithful slave, he would live as having no will and no interests of his own, his one care being to promote the well being and honor of his master. And in like manner I, who have been bought with the blood of Christ, have been bought to live every day with the one thought—How can I please my Master?


 We find the Christian life so difficult because we seek for God's blessing while we live in our own will. We want to live the Christian life according to our own liking. We make our own plans and choose our own work, and then we ask the Lord Jesus to come in and take care that sin shall not conquer us too much, and that we shall not go too far wrong; we ask Him to come in and give us so much of His blessing. But our relation to Jesus ought to be such that we are entirely at His disposal, and every day come to Him humbly and straightforwardly and say: "Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Your will, that has not been ordered by You, or that is not entirely given up to You?"

 If we would wait, and wait patiently; I tell you what the result would be. There would spring up a relationship between us and Christ so close and so tender that we should afterwards be amazed at how we formerly could have lived with the idea, “I am surrendered to Christ." We should feel how far distant our relationship with Him had previously been, and that He can, and does indeed, come and take actual possession of us, and gives unbroken fellowship all day. The branch calls us to absolute surrender.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I truly desire to be fully surrendered to You – in deed as well as in desire. Help me to put this desire into constant action as I obey Your smallest command in the moment You have breathed it.