#86 Radical Surrender, Spiritual Greatness
Posted: Sunday, November 11th, 2018
PrintAbout The Power of Obedience Series
Obedience is not just a reflexive performance of God’s will. It is richer than we know, and its power is known by too few. Would you be one of them?
Devotional
“I have been before God: and have given myself, all that I am and have to God, so that I am not in any respect my own. I can claim no right in myself, no right in this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me, neither have I any right to this body or any of its members, no right to this tongue, these hands nor feet, no right to these senses, these ears, this smell or taste. I have given myself clear away… This I have done. And I pray God, for the sake of Christ, to look upon it as a self-dedication; and to receive me now as entirely His own and deal with me in all respects as such; whether He afflicts me or prospers me, or whatever He pleases to do with me, who am His.”
—Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards’ statement of surrender is probably the most powerful transaction with God I’ve ever read.
John Piper wrote of him: “No one in the last 300 years has seen more of heaven, more of hell, more of happiness and more of holiness than the New England pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). His vision of God and Christian living are unsurpassed in grandeur, gravity and gladness.”
The reason Jonathan Edwards dwelled in intimate joy with God, the reason for his theological soundness, the explanation for his place in Christian history is this one statement of his radical, unequivocal surrender to God, to be owned as in no way his own.
The measure of spiritual greatness is in exact proportion to the level of surrender to our Father in heaven.