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Surrender, Sometimes It Just Plain Hurts

  





Surrender… sometimes it just plain hurts. If you are anything like me, you can recall those specific times when God has had to practically pry certain things from your grip. Though the stuff you clung to so tightly may not have been necessarily bad, but because He knows you so intimately, these things were not aligned with His will for your life. I know from experience how easy it is to hold things that I do not value very loosely but try to take things that have significant meaning from me; I hang on for dear life! It's hard to give up our "stuff." 


In the book of Mark, Chapter 10, a wealthy young man travels to meet Jesus. He is definitely a man with a lot of possessions.   Perhaps he had heard ahead of time that Jesus was speaking, as he came with a pressing question. What could he do to inherit eternal life? Jesus not only saw him coming, but the Scriptures say that He loved him and knew his heart as the young man offered his accomplishments perhaps to buy eternal life. After all, that is the way he acquired everything else he owned. He boasted that he had kept the entire law since childhood, but Jesus seemed less than impressed with this accomplishment. Within this young man, there was a chasm too vast for him to fill with his good works and abundance of possessions. For the love of his possessions was greater than the love he had for the Savior. Some things he just could not let go of; they were untouchables. For the young man to totally surrender, without the release of them, his heart could never fully surrender to Jesus. 


So, Jesus commanded him to first go and sell all that he had, give it to people experiencing poverty, and then come back and follow Him. Still, he could not loosen his grip on his possessions. Sadly, the story ends with the rich young ruler leaving Jesus, dragging his possessions behind him. He left the place where he had encountered the Savior of the world, full of earthly treasures and without the salvation and eternal life he was seeking.


At this, the disciples, witnessing this conversation, stood astounded as he walked away. If He could not inherit eternal life, who could? They had left everything —friends, family, wealth, position, comfort, and safety — to follow Christ. Jesus commended the disciples for their total surrender and promised them the gift of eternal life. There were no untouchables between them and the Lord Jesus.

​

I think about this sometimes. Are there untouchables in my life? What things am I not willing to give up that keep me from total surrender to Christ? Jesus says such things must be released to follow Him. It's tough not to drag my coveted "things" behind me sometimes. Still, they only weigh me down and keep me fixated on a temporal world rather than an eternal one.  The disciple Peter stated it truthfully and so timelessly when he said, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You." Mark 10:28 (NIV)

 

Lord,

Help us to identify "untouchables" in our own lives. Lead us to release them from our grip so that we may give ourselves fully to a relationship that values you, Lord, above any earthly treasures. 

Amen

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