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God Accomplishes Our Surrender

11/27/2019

2 Comments

 
Last week we looked at how God expects our surrender, but He doesn't just throw out this expectation and then leave us to our destruction. Our God promises to accomplish our surrender. 
I hate to admit it, but all to often I find myself worried that if I give this part of my life to Jesus, if I give Him absolute surrender, just what will that mean in my life? “Lord, I have passed through so many struggles, and so much suffering, and there is still so much self-life left, how can I give you this too, knowing it means more struggles and suffering?” 
These kind of thoughts really disturb me when I realize what I am saying about my Savior and Lord with this kind of fear and anxiety. If you ever struggle with mis-trust as I do, then I have great news today! God does not ask us to give this perfect surrender in our strength, or by our will power. Our amazing God is willing to make it happen in us! Philippians 2:13 tells us, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” That should be our greatest joy, to fall on our faces before a God who didn't just tell us what He demands, but promises to come in personally and conquer our wrong thoughts and desires, and turn us into something that brings Him great pleasure. God Himself will work in you! 
Friends, I challenge you, and myself to put away the fear, and fall before God with a willing heart. If your struggling to have a willing heart, as I am, then pray this prayer, “Lord make me willing to be made willing” and He hears that prayer, and is eager to make it happen! We spend that precious time each day becoming friends with Jesus for this very reason. We must 
learn to trust our dear friend, so we can say, “Lord Jesus, I am willing for You to make me willing.” If there is anything holding us back, if there is any sacrifice we are afraid to make, I encourage you here and now to prove what a gracious and wonderful God we serve, and not think for a moment that He would ask us to do anything that He will not accomplish Himself. 
God offers through the Holy Spirit to fill us with Jesus, and work this absolute surrender in our lives. That is what we're told in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old is gone, the new is here!” That very desire, the hungering and thirsting you feel in your heart right now is the drawing of Jesus, desiring to do His good pleasure in your life. 
Friends, we have hindered the Holy Spirit again and again, but He longs to fill our lives with Jesus, to accomplish in us that absolute surrender to Himself. And He can do it! And will do it! You see, God not only accomplishes surrender in our lives, but He accepts it when we bring it to Him. 
I look forward to next week, when we discuss how God Accepts Our Surrender! 
I love you! 
Brad 

2 Comments

God Expects Our Surrender

11/20/2019

1 Comment

 
Last week we discovered that with God the one thing that matters most is our
surrender. Without our surrender to Jesus, our walk with Him has never even started.
Regardless of our flowery professions and pretenses, unless we have completely given
Him every part of our life, we are not disciples, and our Walk With Jesus is not really
happening.

It can't be any other way with God! It can't be, because He is the fountain of life, and
the only reason we continue to exist. Everything good in the universe is a result of God.
He created the sun, moon and stars — every flower, tree and blade of grass is
absolutely surrendered to God. They all allow Him to work in them just as He pleases.
When our Lord and Creator clothes the orchid with its breath taking beauty, it is
completely yielded, surrendered, given over to God, so He can shape and grow it to
demonstrate His glory. So as God’s redeemed children, can we expect God to be able
to grow us up into Jesus, and shape us in His beauty and glory, with only half, or part
of our lives surrendered? God can't do it!

God's very nature is life, and love, and blessings, and power. He is infinite beauty and
wants more than anything to show us every bit of it. The only thing that can keep this
from happening is our lack of absolute surrender. This is the one thing that hinders
Jesus from doing all the great things He so dearly wants to do in our lives. And now He
comes, as God, as our Creator, He claims our surrender. God expects our surrender!
Friends, if we are going to be absolutely surrendered to Jesus, then every part of our
life has to be given to Him, to use as He sees fit. If you have a pen in your pocket, that
pen is absolutely surrendered to the work of writing. That pen is totally and completely
surrendered to your hand if you are going to write properly. Just like the pen, unless
you and I are entirely given up to Jesus, He cannot accomplish His work in us. He
cannot regenerate us with His divine nature, day by day, and moment by moment.

1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us, “Don't you know that you yourself are God’s temple and
that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” As Christians, everyone of us is a temple of
God, and there is nothing He wants more than to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit,
and work mightily in everyone of our lives. The simple truth is that no matter how much
He wants that for us, He cannot do it unless we give Him Absolute Surrender!
He stands at the door of our hearts, asking, pleading with us! He is worthy, and He
claims our surrender, but He goes even beyond that. He says, “I will accomplish your
surrender if you will just get out of the way, and let Me in!”

Next week we will look at how God accomplishes our surrender!

​I hope each of you have a wonderful week.
I love you!
Brad
1 Comment

The One Thing

11/12/2019

0 Comments

 
As your pastor, I was excited to learn that one of the top initiatives of the Alaska Conference is discipleship, which I prefer to call Walking With Jesus. And the best place to start is the beginning, and walking with Jesus always starts with surrender. Until we completely surrender our lives to Jesus, there is no discipleship, it is just admiration of a great God and man. It is only when we give our lives to Jesus we become Disciples, and the walk with Jesus begins. So for the next few months we will be giving special attention to surrender. I hope you will read carefully, because surrender for the Christian is a daily, moment by moment experience. When we cease to surrender at any stage of our walk with Jesus, our growth stops, and will not continue until we are once again completely surrendered. 
In 1 Kings 20:1-4 we read, 
“Now Ben-Hadad king of Aram mustered his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two king's with their chariots, he went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it. He sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, saying, “This is what Ben-Hadad says: ‘Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.’ The king of Israel answered, ‘Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours.’” 
King Ben-Hadad was asking for complete and absolute surrender, and that is exactly what king Ahab gave. This is exactly what Jesus is asking of you and me in our walk with Him! Our answer to every prompting of the Holy Spirit needs to be, “Just as you say, my Lord the King. I and all I have are Yours.” This is so important for us to not just accept intellectually, but to embed in our very souls! For us to completely receive God’s blessings our surrender must be completely and absolutely! And I am not talking about material blessings, this is so much deeper than that, but if we are willing to completely surrender ourselves to Jesus and stay put, there is no end to what God will do for us, and through us, because Jesus is dwelling in our lives. 
Years ago Andrew Murray tells of how he was meeting with a church group, and they were talking about the condition of the church, and what the great need of the church and its believers was. In their group was a godly man who had been training workers for many years. He was asked, what is the great need of the church, and the message that ought to be preached? He answered very quietly and very simply and determinedly: “Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.” This man went on to say that with the workers that he taught, if they were sound on this one point, even if they were backwards in any other area, if they were surrendered to Jesus, and willing to be taught they continued to grow in their spiritual walk. 
Friends, the condition for receiving God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him! 
Next week we will look at how God expects our surrender! See you Sabbath! 
I love you! 
Brad

0 Comments

    Pastor Brad

    Pastor Brad Traxler is the pastor of the Wrangell SDA Church. Brad Traxler is the husband of forty years to Cheryl, father to Kimberly and Ryan, and grandfather to Brad, Kevin, William, Eamon, Zairhen, Seraphina, and Zeelyah. He holds a BA in Theology and has been pastoring churches for twenty years. The greatest passion of His life has been to share Jesus. 

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