GIVE yourselves to God (3)

"I surrender all..."Yes, we do sing that from time to time. Surrendering all, giving it all to Him. What does that really mean?

The scripture I am using as a basis for this series can be found in Romans 6:12-14, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Offering ourselves, giving ourselves to God, means surrendering our whole being to Him. According to the Bible that is spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Sadly enough there are many Christians who struggle desperately with spiritual, emotional and physical problems (and sometimes all three). A struggle that takes up most of our time and attention, so we never get to the point where we can offer ourselves to be used as instruments in His service. But this does not have to be so, it can change! Take courage, keep reading. 

In part 2 of this series we discovered that the most important moment in a person's life is when we surrender our spirit to God (when we believe in Jesus Christ). God's Spirit comes to live in us and revives our spirit, we become a new creation. In this post we will take a closer look at our soul. How do we give our soul to God? 

According to the Bible our spirit can be renewed (born again), but our soul gets saved. We call that salvation. In Peter 1:8-9 it says that the salvation of our souls is the end result of our faith, Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Our soul does not perish, on the contrary: it gets saved. This means that, despite the fact that we become a new creation through rebirth, we keep our same old soul. The soul with all it's pains and hurts, disappointments and struggles. I do not have enough space on this blog to write extensively about the human soul (see chapter 8 of my book Grace of Giving), but for one thing the human soul consists of our emotions.

We do not receive a new and clean soul... Sometimes people say: repent and turn your life to Jesus, all your worries will be gone. This is a little bit too simple. YES! In Him it is possible to be free from all our burdens (sin, shame, guilt, sickness, pain and worries), but that does not happen automatically. It is very important that we also accept Jesus Christ as the one who has access to our soul, so He can work on it. He wants to be the shepherd and overseer according to 1 Peter 2:25, For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

GIVE your soul to Him so He can do the necessary work. He will guide and direct, heal an deliver, feed and protect your soul. Expose your secrets and tell Him: Lord, this is my inner struggle, I need your help. Please be the shepherd of my soul. The healing and cleansing of our soul is a life long process (because we keep experiencing stuff) and not always easy. But it will surely set us free!

PS: if this series helps you, forward it to a friend!