Spending time with Oswald Chambers this morning and his devotion came out of Hebrews 4 so I read Hebrews 4. The whole chapter spoke to me but these two verses especially. Hebrews 4.10 For all who have entered into God's rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11 So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall. Obliviously the passage is talking about taking a Sabbath. A day off from work and just resting. We can't even do that most of the time. I will put another spin on it, How about just resting in His arms for 10 minutes. For me that is a hard thing to do. That is surrender
……. That is total surrender. How many of us will just flat not take the time to stop and rest? Get quiet? Be still? We are so stinking busy that we rationalize our time with the Lord. How many of you keep a daily planner? You schedule everything … from picking up the kids to school to your daily meeting with the manager of your work to your 10.00 conference call that you have every day with the owner. Maybe even your daily planner has your weekly appointment with your pastor, but nowhere on your planner does it have time with the Lord, why is that? I think for most of us, we just believe that we are going to spend time with Him and rest. The truth is that we just wave good bye in the morning on our way out the door and say I will catch you tomorrow and He just sits and rest and waits for us. Now I am not saying that everyone does this … what I am saying is that it is a common thing. I have done this myself. The flipside is if you do the very same thing every day then does it become religion? I don't think so if you are doing it because you love the Lord.
Here is what François Fenelon the Archbishop of Cambria said in the 17th century. He was the spiritual advisor to Louie the 14th. He said this in a letter to the King about surrender. There is more in the letter but this is the main point. Let me tell you what real surrender is. It is simply resting in the love of the Lord, as a little baby rests in his mother arms. A perfect surrender must even be willing to quit surrendering, if that is what the Lord wants. We renounce ourselves, and yet, God never lets us know when it is complete. If we knew, it would no longer BE complete, for there is nothing that bolsters the ego quiet so much as knowing that it is fully surrendered.
Surrender consist, not in doing great, heroic deeds about which self can brag, but simply in accepting whatever God sends, and not seeking to change it. Full surrender is full peace. If we are restless and concerned about things that are formally renounced, we have not genuinely surrendered. Surrender is the source of true peace. If we are not at peace. It is because our surrender is not complete.
