“Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.” (Matthew 6:26)
Jesus is very clear on this point: There is no way for a human being to come to God that does not involve surrender.
Surrender is not the same thing as passivity. God’s will for your life involves exercising creativity, making choices, and taking initiative. Surrender does not mean being a doormat. It does not mean you accept circumstances fatalistically. Often it means you will have to fight to challenge the status quo. It doesn’t mean that you stop using your mind, stop asking questions, or stop thinking critically. Surrender is not a crutch for weak people who cannot handle life.
Instead, surrender is the glad and voluntary acknowledgement that there is a God and it is not me. His purposes are often wiser and better than our own desires. Jesus does not come to rearrange the outside of our life the way we want. He comes to rearrange the inside of our life the way God wants.
In surrender, I let go of my life. It is a Copernican revolution of the soul in which I take myself out of the center of the universe and place God there. I yield to Him. I offer obedience. I do what He says.
-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You”
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