Surrender Is the Key
By Michael Youssef, Ph.D.
Sin first entered the world when Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie and ate fruit God had forbidden them to eat. They disobeyed, choosing their own “wisdom” rather than trusting and following God in His infinite, perfect wisdom. All these years later, nothing has really changed. Each human philosophy and ideology elevates man’s desires above God’s—and that’s why they will all fail.
Only God’s wisdom can actually fix the messes we’ve made. But, while we have access to the mind of God through the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:11-12), the only way to fully benefit from the Spirit’s work in our lives is to surrender ourselves to Him. Every day, we must ask Him to take over, to sit in the driver’s seat. In a sense, we must do what Adam and Eve failed to do—yield everything in our lives to God through His Spirit.
If we ignore or disobey the Holy Spirit, we will grieve Him (see Ephesians 4:30). If we keep it up, we may even “quench” Him (see 1 Thessalonians 5:19). In other words, He’ll stay silent until He’s invited back in. No wonder so many people today can read the Bible and yet miss everything it’s saying! But the good news is that it’s never too late to surrender to the Spirit; if we but ask, He’ll lead us and guide us, giving us the wisdom we need to thrive in this world.
Prayer: Lord, I want to walk by the Spirit—to keep in step with my Best Friend. I know that means I must submit. I must decrease, and Christ must increase in me. Give me the will to walk in Your ways and to call on You, that I might become more and more like my Savior. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
“[F]or, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
Learn more in Dr. Michael Youssef’s sermon Healthy Living in a Sick World, Part 3: LISTEN NOW
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