“Lord, I lift up my hands, I surrender all to you”….or do I?
This morning as I was running errands, I heard a song on the radio that said ‘I lift my hands, I lay down my life.’ Those words struck my heart today. I began to think about those words and what they really meant.
When we lift our hands to the Lord, we are declaring that we surrender all to God. Sometimes I think we do that way too lightly in the Body of Christ, lift our hands, I mean. If we are to lift our hands, and we should, we must realize what we are declaring, that we are saying ‘I surrender all to You, God.’
That means I surrender my will and my plans and I choose Yours instead. That means that you choose to go Gods way in whatever He says to do. And you don’t have to wonder what He says to do in any given situation, it is written down in letters of black and red, it’s in the Bible. He has given us His instructions and His thoughts concerning anything and everything that could ever affect us.
The rest of the chorus said ‘I lay down my life.’ I lay down my life, or do I? Man has a will and gives us the ability to choose our way or His way. In every situation and in every day of our lives we choose life or death. We choose the way of the flesh or the way of the Spirit of God. There are no other choices, no in-betweens, right or wrong, black or white, death or life.
When we say we lay down our life, we relinquish our ability to choose and instead defer to Gods plan and His way. We lay down our right to get angry when someone wrong’s us. We lay down our right to have the last word. We lay down our right to plan our own future. We lay down our right to do what we want to do with our money. We lay down our rights and we pick up His way of doing things.
I don’t know about you but as for me, sometimes I feel I have been wronged and I have a right to be angry. I have a right to stay angry long enough to let them know they have wronged me. I have a right to have the final say. That’s how my flesh feels, if I choose to go that route, I have chosen death in that situation.
If I truly lift my hands and lay down my life, I would choose differently. I would choose to forgive quickly knowing as I do that God will always forgive me quickly. I should choose to sow mercy (undeserved forgiveness) knowing it is very possible that I will need mercy in my own life, that I will need undeserved forgiveness. I would choose to release them to God and not expect them to pay for what they have done to me, knowing that Jesus already paid that debt in full. If I choose life, that’s what I would do.
The next time you raise your hands, the next time you lay down your life to God, take an moment to stop and think about what you are saying and doing. Think about what you are surrendering and what you are laying down, literally dying to. And then when the opportunities arise, choose life. Choose God’s way of handling it. Choose the way of the Spirit and not the way of flesh.
God desires to bless us beyond our imagination, but it will only come God’s way. You can’t go the way of the flesh and expect to live the abundant life Jesus died to give you; however, if you choose the way of the Spirit, you can and will enjoy the abundant life that Jesus died to give you.
Sing with me today: ‘I lift up my hand and I lay down my life.’ I choose YOU, God! I choose YOUR way and YOUR plan. I Surrender All!
