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God Blesses Our Surrender 2

12/24/2019

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Last week we discussed how God not only maintains our surrender , but He blesses our surrender! This week I would like to look a little deeper into how God blesses our surrender. So, when was Peter delivered? When was he converted and surrendered his life completely to Jesus? As often happens, his change came with a crisis. Peter discovered that instead of being strong and good, he was weak and sinful. Have you ever come to this crisis in your life? I sure have! And we must, because it’s really hard for God to save good people. And when I say that, I mean people who have not come to the point that they realize their good deeds are not what saves them. It is when we realize as Peter did, just how sick and helpless we are, that God can finally start that process in 2 Corinthians 5:17 
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 
It is only then that we start the discipleship process and our walk with Jesus. Peter’s change began with weeping, and he finally allowed the Holy Spirit to come down and fill his heart. 
Our loving Heavenly Father loves to give us the power of the Spirit, so that we have the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts. When we can bow before Him, confessing how we have grieved the Spirit and we have put ourself before Jesus, then God can strengthen us with the power of His Spirit by reveling Jesus to us, so He can come and dwell in our lives and cast out the self-life. Andrew Murray puts it this way, 
“Let us bow before God in humility, and in that humility confess before Him the state of the whole church. No words can tell the sad state of the church of Christ on earth. I wish I had words to speak what I sometimes 
feel about it. Just think of the Christians around you. I do not speak of normal Christians, or professing Christians, but I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a man utterly surrendered to God’s will!” Absolute Surrender page 16 
We may be tempted to say, well that was in his day. Certainly it’s different in our day, and most certainly in our church! Is it really? Is it different in my life? Is it different in your life? Or are we those “good” people who like the Rich Young Ruler had done good his whole life, and yet when Jesus showed him his true heart, he went away sorrowful? What does absolute surrender really mean, and how does our Lord bless our surrender? 
I’m trying to be honest with myself here, and I hope you will as well. We are members of a last day church which is rich and in need of nothing! All to often I find myself in a partnership with the world, loving the things that the world loves, and showing the same coldness toward my fellow man that the world does. It all to often becomes about me, and what I want instead of giving myself entirely and wholly to Jesus. How much Christian work do I do in the spirit of the flesh, and in the power of self? May I be that real with you? I think these are questions we need to give some thought. 
Friends, how many of us truly long to be delivered from the self-life? How many of us are willing to admit that much of our life is just the power of self, and are we ready to cast all at the feet of Jesus, the only place we can find deliverance? I pray that death will be the most desirable thing in the world to us - death to self, replaced by fellowship with Jesus! That is how God blesses our surrender and gives us that life more abundant. Giving all to Jesus! I look forward to seeing each of you. Have a wonderful Week! 
I love you! 
Brad 

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God Blesses Our Surrender

12/12/2019

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We have seen how God Expects our surrender. How He Accomplishes our surrender. Then Accepts our surrender, and doesn't leave us there, but is the one who Maintains our surrender, and lastly He Blesses our surrender. And this absolute surrender to God will wonderfully bless our lives! 
We saw in our first study on surrender that King Ahab, said to King Ben- hadad, “My Lord, O King, according to thy word I am thine, and all that I have.” Should we offer anything less to our Lord and Savior, who is not only our creator, but also our redeemer? And if we are willing, and do say this to Jesus and our loving Father, we can be assured that all the blessings of heaven are ours! 
We have the perfect example in Jesus who was in this world for thirty- three and a half years and yet was never of this world. God ask us to be separate from the world. The Holy Spirit has been reminding me again and again as I write this, that this separation is much more than just keeping the Sabbath, not eating certain meats and claiming to be God’s people as the Israelites did. Instead our prayer should be, “Lord, anything for You.” If we with honest hearts speak that into God's ear, He will accept it, and He will teach us what that really means. 
God will bless us! We have been praying for a blessing, but our part in receiving this all important blessing, as small as our part might be, is absolute surrender. It is a small thing that only we can do, and God cannot, and will not force it on us. Just as important, He cannot lead us forward in our walk without it. 
If you sit down to a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with your family, on this day your best china, silverware, and goblets are on the table. In these goblets is poured juice. Now why is juice poured into these goblets? Because they are empty, and totally given up for the juice. But if you were to put ink, or oil, or vinegar into the goblet, could you fill it with juice? And can God fill us and bless us if we are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He can't! 
Friends, we must truly believe that when we surrender completely to Jesus, He will fill our lives with wonderful blessings beyond what we can even imagine. If we can stand up for Jesus and say, “Lord my will is trembling, but I believe in you.” Andrew Murray said it this way, 
“O God, I accept Thy demands. I am Thine and all that I have. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to Thee by divine grace.” 
We may not feel that our desires are pure, and our trust is strong, but if we humble ourselves before God and admit that we have grieved the Holy Spirit with self-will, our self-confidence and self-effort, and if we can bow before Him, and ask Him to break our hearts and if need be to roll us in the dust before Him. When we can do that, when we can accept that there is nothing good in us, that what we must have is a new life in Jesus. When we can deny self once and for all, and denying self becomes the power of our lives, then Jesus will come and take possession of our lives. When that happens our church will be a force in our community, and we will be a blessing in our families, unlike anything we have seen before. I look forward to that day! And it is coming! 
Next week I would like to spend a little more time looking at how God blesses our surrender. 
I love you! Brad

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God Maintains Our Surrender

12/5/2019

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How many times have we experienced a Week of Prayer or an amazing Campmeeting, and with every ounce of our being we have committed our lives to Jesus, just to see it fade away in a few weeks or months? 
It is frustrating, but remember, when God begins the work of absolute surrender in our lives, and when Jesus has accepted our surrender, Jesus holds Himself responsible to care for it and keep it. I hope and pray that we can believe that, because our spiritual growth, and our walk with Jesus depends on it! 
When it comes to surrender, there is just Jesus and me! Jesus and you! We are weak, frail, self-centered, and Jesus is the everlasting, and all powerful Ruler of the Universe. So, the real question is: Are we as frail, weak human beings afraid to trust ourselves to the all powerful God of the Universe? 
Jesus is ready and willing! God the Father is ready! The Holy Spirit is ready! Do we believe that They can keep us continually, day by day, and moment by moment surrendered to Him? 
Again from Andrew Murray this wonderful quote: 
“If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment? And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in trust.” Absolute Surrender p.12 
It always comes back to faith! Do we trust Jesus with our life? Do we trust our loving Heavenly Father to do what He has promised? Do we trust the Holy Spirit to come and fill our lives with Jesus? As in every part of our walk with Jesus, He can only bless us to the extent that we can believe! 
And I am well aware that a life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. In fact, it is much more than just difficult, for us it is absolutely impossible! But by the grace of God, and by Jesus dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, it is a life that is not only possible, but in Christ it is a done deal! Our part in all this is to believe that Jesus will maintain our surrender. 
Many of you have heard of the life of George Muller, that great man of prayer, who trusted in God to house thousands of orphans in England for over 40 years, and never asked for a penny from anyone but God. On his 90th Birthday he was asked what he believed was the secret of his happiness? He said, “That of all the blessings which God had given him, he believed there were two reasons for his great joy.” 
The first was that by God's grace, he had been given the ability to maintain a good conscience before God day by day. The second was his fellowship with Jesus every day in the Bible, and prayer - Friends, that is a life of absolute surrender. 
And this life of surrender has two sides - on one side is absolute surrender to do God's will; the other side is to let God work in us, to use us as He sees fit. We do what God wants us to do by giving up ourselves completely to do His will. May our prayer be, “Lord by Your grace I desire to do Your will in everything, every moment of every day. May there not be a word upon my lips, but for Your glory. May my temper be sweet for Your glory. May every affection in my heart be for Your glory, and according to Your will.” 
Friends, let's give ourselves absolutely to God - it is Him who gives us the ability to carry out such surrender. We can say, “I give myself absolutely to Jesus, to let Him work in me to will and to do His good pleasure, as He has promised He would.” 
God wants to work in us in a way we can't even understand yet, and He wants to do it every moment of every day! He is willing to maintain our life, if we can only believe it, and allow Him to do it. 
Have a wonderful week! 
I love you! Brad 

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    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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