Do You Surrender?
Surrender.
This is a polarizing word.
Some look at surrender as an option they will never pursue. They take the stance of the stalwart soldier who cries out, "We will never surrender." Fighting to the bitter end; hanging on by our fingernails, until our last, gasping breath. It makes for dramatic, powerful drama in movies and real-time challenges.
Surrender can also be viewed as a sign of weakness. When someone surrenders, it is because they aren't strong enough to "tough it out." It exposes their vulnerability and inability to push through. Even the universal pose of hands to the sky takes the stance of being unable to do anything on offense.
As pastors, we talk about surrender as a foundational part of our relationship with God. Here's the bomb — it rarely appears in the Bible. In my personal devotion time, I read the English Standard Version; it's a direct translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek text. The literal word "surrender" barely appears in the ESV, and where it does, it's almost always about a city or army giving itself up to a conquering force — not a devotional call to surrender to God. The devotional "surrender your life to God" idea is conveyed instead through words like submit, yield, deny, present, and commit (e.g., James 4:7, Romans 12:1, Luke 9:23, Proverbs 3:5–6). If God never directly commands us to surrender, why would we?
If you go back to the Garden of Eden, the infamous story of Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent sets the stage for the most life-changing surrender moment.
He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' " 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Genesis 3:1–5.
Eve and Adam had the chance to surrender. They had the opportunity to say in their hearts, minds, words, and actions, "I will do God's will and not my own will." Basically, "I surrender." Ever since then, sin entered the world, and every person following them is born into a sinful nature. All sin comes down to the same challenge and temptation that happened in the garden. Name the sin you're facing and you have to answer that question — God's will vs. my will. It doesn't say that you need to surrender. Yet the concept of surrender is ascribed from this moment on in each of our lives. Do we value God enough to surrender to His will? Do we value Jesus enough to surrender who is King and Lord of our life? Do we value the Holy Spirit enough to surrender our daily interactions to His lead and not our own? The fight we all face is God vs. me. The crazy part of the battle is Jesus surrendered His life so we could be in relationship with God. In doing so, the choice and the decision is all ours to make.
"The serpent's question in the garden was never really about fruit. It was about who gets the final word — God's, or ours. Every temptation since has asked the same thing. Surrender isn't in the Bible's vocabulary because God isn't looking for a defeated soldier laying down his weapon. He's looking for a son or daughter who hands over the keys. You have battled long enough to hold onto it all. It is time to lay it down and determine who's holding the keys right now. If you are that stalwart soldier who fights to the very end, the question is a straight up challenge...Do you surrender?"
