Chapter 3 - The Believer's Part in Becoming
Spirit-filled – Yielding
From Life on the Highest Plane, Volume 3, Chapter 3
by Ruth Paxon, Moody Bible Institute 1928.
In the two wondrous gifts of His Son and His Spirit,
God has made perfect provision for a life of true spirituality. God's twofold
gift to us was not a partial gift. When He gave Christ He gave all of Christ;
when He gave the Holy Spirit He gave all of the Holy Spirit. He withheld
nothing from us. Love not only gave its best but its all. When God gave
Christ to us He gave Him in all the fullness of His perfect life and His
perfected work. When God gave the Holy Spirit He gave Him to indwell, to infill
and to empower. God is not a niggardly, grudging giver. In the glorified Christ
through the fullness of the Holy Spirit He has given all that He has to give to
make us spiritual. This is the perfection of grace, the acme even of divine
giving.
God has made the provision but you must make the
decision whether you will be Spirit-filled or not. There is a place in God's
dealings with men beyond which He cannot go. He Himself set this boundary line
in man's right to will. He sets the feast before you but He cannot compel you
to eat. He opens the door into the abundant life but He cannot coerce you to
enter. He places in the bank of God a deposit that makes you a spiritual
multimillionaire but He cannot write your checks. God has done His part, now
you must do yours.
The responsibility for fullness or lack of fullness
is now in your hands. He will be limited in the giving of the fullness of His
Spirit by one thing only -- the room given to Him to fill. "You may have
all the fullness you will make room for." To be Spirit-filled requires
your active, hearty cooperation with God. You have a very clearly defined part
in becoming spiritual.
YIELDING -- THE BELIEVER'S PART IN BECOMING
SPIRIT-FILLED
The basic principle in a spiritual life lies in its
control. The life of the natural man is wholly in the control of "the old
man"; the life of the carnal Christian is partially in the control of
self. If one determines to become a Spirit-filled Christian the right to reign
must be taken altogether from "the old man" and given into the hands
of the Lord Jesus. What the Holy Spirit wishes the believer to do and what He
works to bring him to do is to cooperate with Him in this matter by refusing
deliberately the further reign of self and by choosing voluntarily the
sovereignty of Christ over his life, yielding to Him as Lord and Master.
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Romans 6:16, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Romans
6:19, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness
and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to
righteousness unto holiness." |
To yield the life unto God is the first step in a
continuous walk in the Spirit. This step takes us by our own choice out of the
realm of self-will into the realm of God's will. It takes us back to our God-intended,
God-provided centre. It gives us a base for all future growth in spiritual
things. It furnishes us with new headquarters from which all our future life
will be directed. In yielding to Christ we definitely align ourselves with the
perfect will of God and choose it to be the rule of our lives in all things
forever afterward. We adopt the language of Christ which, whether in the great
crises of life such as those in the wilderness, in Gethsemane or on Calvary, or
in the ordinary walk and work of daily life in the carpenter shop and the home,
was invariably "Thy will be done." In yielding to the sovereignty of
the Lord Jesus Christ we deliberately choose from that time on to do His will
instead of our own in all things and for all time.
THE LIFE YIELDED -- WHY?
There are two quite diverse motives that lead people
to yield themselves wholly to the Lord. Some make the approach to a yielded
life along the avenue of their own need. They hunger and thirst for more of
Christ. They long to realize more perfectly their inheritance in Him.
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Ephesians 1:11, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will." |
Others come into a yielded life over the pathway of
Christ's claim. They recognize the loneliness and yearning of Christ's heart
for more of them. They desire to have Him possess to the full His inheritance
in them.
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Ephesians 1:18, "The eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what
is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." |
Both our need of Him and His of us call for the
yielding of our lives to Him. Every relationship which Christ bears to us is
made ineffectual in an un-yielded life. It is impossible for Christ to become
all that He designs and desires to become apart from a wholly yielded life. He
is handicapped and hindered in all He would do in and through us by our
unwillingness to have it done; as Saviour He cannot save us from sin we insist
upon retaining; as Head of the Body He cannot direct a stubborn member; as Lord
He cannot reveal His will to one who does not want to know it or to obey it; as
Life He cannot fill what is already filled with a totally different substance;
as Sanctifier He cannot separate us wholly unto Himself when we prefer to live
unto self and the world; as Captain He cannot use us to defeat the enemy when
we ourselves already have allowed him to defeat us. Christ is checked at every
turn in an un-yielded life and rendered practically impotent. The realization
and enjoyment of our precious inheritance in Him and of His purchased
inheritance in us depend upon our unconditional yielding to Him.
There is a basic motive in the yielding of the life
to Christ which when discovered is both convincing and compelling. To His glory
may I share with you the way in which God graciously led me to this discovery
and the revolutionary change it wrought in my relationship to the Lord Jesus.
Becoming a Christian when a girl I experienced deep
and real joy in the consciousness of the forgiveness of sins and in the
fellowship of Christ. I truly loved my Lord and longed to live so that others,
especially members of my family, would see that He was indeed my Saviour.
Though born again I knew nothing of a yielded life and consequently some of the
old sins continued to manifest themselves in the same old way. One of the most
outstanding was temper. Over and over again it was lost and hasty, unkind words
said even to those nearest and dearest. Having what often accompanies a quick
temper, a sensitive, affectionate heart, I would go apart after an outburst and
cry as though my heart would break. Times without number the resolve was made
never to lose my temper again and the attempt was made to conquer it by
willpower, but all to no avail, and I continued in a life of constant defeat
and miserable failure. Conscious of the evident hypocrisy in such a life, all
the joy experienced in conversion left me. Truly loving the Lord I hated myself
for the caricature of Him I was giving to others.
One day, thoroughly discouraged and disheartened by
an overwhelming sense of defeat, I sought the quiet of my own room and shut
myself in with the Lord, determined to stay until something happened. I told
the Lord that either He must show me what a truly Christian life was
and how to live it or I would renounce my profession of Christ and ask
to have my name taken from the church roll. I was desperately in earnest and
God always meets one who truly seeks Him. He graciously met me that day and
answered both my questions.
Two verses from His Word He used to flood my soul
with light. My prayer is that again He may use them to bring similar joy and
peace to others discouraged and defeated.
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1 Corinthians 6: 19-20, "What? know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." |
Through three unforgetable invincible statements of
truth God unveiled the essence of a yielded life and revealed its basic motive.
"What? Know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost?" No, until that day I did not know that my
body had any relationship whatsoever to my conversion neither did I know that
the Holy Spirit had taken it to be His temple. That God laid claim to my body
for His habitation and that the Holy Spirit had already made it His
home was to me a startling revelation. Think for a moment what that means --
God, the Holy One actually dwelling in your human body! Suppose some earthly
king would send word that he wanted to spend just one day in your home. What a
housecleaning would take place! How all the best and loveliest things would be
taken out to use! What preparation would be made that everything would be
exactly fitting and worthy of such an honoured guest! But oh! what an unclean,
unfit, unworthy place we often ask the King of kings and Lord of lords to live
in, not for a day but for a lifetime! What an unholy, desecrated temple we
offer to the Holy Spirit!
But I have given the Lord my soul, what need hath He
of my body? was the question that came into my mind. I saw faintly that day but
with growing clearness every day since why God asks for our bodies. Dare we say
it -- it is His need of a channel through which He may give to a world that
knows Him not a revelation of who He is and of His yearning love for men.
"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and men saw and knew who the
Father was by the presence of the Son on earth. Christ is now in heaven. But
oh! is His presence not needed here on earth? Is He not needed in your city? In
your church? In your school? In your office? In your social circle? In your
home? And how is the glorified Christ to presence Himself here on earth? In
what way will He reveal Himself to men now?
Christ has just two ways of making Himself known; one
is through His Word. But countless thousands do not even possess a Bible, and
countless millions could not read it if they did. The other way is through us
in whom He dwells as the Life of our life. Oh! do you not see how He needs your
body to be wholly His? Today He needs eyes, ears; lips, hands, feet, minds,
hearts, wills and all that makes up a human personality for the manifestation
of Himself on earth as truly as these things were needed when He dwelt as the
incarnate Son in a human body. When Christ was upon earth it was not merely His
teaching and preaching that won men to Him. It was His life, His personal
presence, Himself. So today men need to see Christ; to feel His presence; to be
brought face to face with Him. The Lord Jesus showed me that day that He wanted
and needed my body with my entire human personality to indwell and to use as a
medium of revealing Himself to others.
There was something wondrously beautiful in the
thought that the Lord of glory could ever have need of me. I knew only too well
how desperately I needed Him. Moment by moment I needed to draw all my life
from Him as the branch lives in the life of the vine. But to think that He
needed me! that there was fruit to be borne that could only be borne on a
branch! that some life somewhere would need to see Christ in me! It was a
marvelously convincing appeal, yet I am ashamed to record it even now so many
years afterward, I hesitated to yield.
Was my life not my own? Was it not asking a great
deal to turn it over to the absolute sovereignty of another? Should I
relinquish all right to its possession and control? Was it safe to do
so? Was it reasonable? Was it needful? Oh! the feasible, plausible arguments
that self advanced to retain the kingship over my life!
All this reluctance was anticipated by the Lord and
He was prepared to meet it. "What? Know ye that ye are not your own?"
Like a sharp two-edged sword these words penetrated to my innermost being and
lodged there. How they cut into shreds every argument advanced against such a
wholesale yielding of myself to God! "Know ye that ye are not your
own?" How they severed the undergirding beneath all my thinking
concerning my rights in myself! "Know ye that ye are not your own?"
How they brought to light the hitherto disguised hypocrisy of my profession as
a Christian in saying that I belonged to Jesus Christ yet all the while
retaining in my own hands the reins of government! "Know ye that ye
are not your own?" How these words went straight to the very heart of
the issue like an axe laid at the root of the tree -- the enthronement of Jesus
Christ as Lord over my life or the continued reign of self!
A flood of light entered my soul through that simple
but imperative question of the Lord. I was convinced of the rightfulness of
God's claim upon me but I was not yet constrained to yield to it. Oh! the
incredible, unthinkable stubbornness to resist and refuse in the light of such
clear conviction! Oh! the infinite, unwearying patience of the divine heart to
continue to woo and to work in the face of such willfulness!
I was not only stubborn but fearful. If I let go and
put myself wholly and unconditionally in His possession and control what might
He not take from me? What might He not ask of me? I was in the same state of
mind as was the college girl who said she would like to yield herself wholly to
God but she was afraid He would take advantage of her. To put the truth very
bluntly I would have been glad to have turned over to the Lord for His
possession and control all the unpleasant, unmanageable, uncontrollable part of
myself if He would have left the rest to me!
But God dealt very gently and tenderly with me,
drawing me closer and closer to Himself by the cords of love. To master my will
He had to melt my heart. "What? know ye that ye are not your own for
ye are bought with a price?" Bought! Not my own because bought!
Here again was something new. I had been thinking that by yielding to Christ I
would be conferring the ownership of my life upon Him, that I would be making
an outright gift to Him. But God showed me that day that I already belonged
to Christ by the right of purchase and that Christ's claim to the
undivided possession and control of my life was an absolutely legitimate one.
Who could deny one the right to that which He had purchased?
Convinced again and still not constrained to yield.
"Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price." Oh! That
price! "Redeemed not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot." The precious blood of Christ the price paid for me! The life of the
spotless, stainless, sinless Son of God laid down for my paltry, insignificant,
sinful, selfish life! A Life given for a life!
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2 Corinthians 5:15, "And that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him
which died for them, and rose again." |
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A LIFE FOR A LIFE "Oh,
hands, outstretched upon the tree, "Oh,
feet of Christ, so rent and torn! "Oh,
head of Christ, with thorn-wrought crown! "Oh,
heart of Christ! Oh, wounded side! |
I had been saying "Must I give myself
to Him?" But on that day kneeling in spirit at the foot of the cross of
Christ I said from the depths of my heart "May I yield all that I
am and have for time and for eternity to Him who gave all for me?"
And what was the basic motive in the yielding? It was
the joyous response of love to love following the spiritual apprehension of the
reasonableness and rightfulness of Christ's claim upon my life and the use He
desired to make of it.
Then let us define yielding. Yielding is the
definite, deliberate, voluntary transference of the undivided possession,
control and use of the whole being, spirit, soul and body from self to Christ,
to whom it rightfully belongs by creation and by purchase. In yielding to
Christ we crown Him Lord of all in our lives. "Consecration does not
confer ownership, it presumes it. It is not in order to be His, but because
we are His, that we yield up our lives. It is purchase that gives
title; delivery simply gives possession. The
question is not, 'Do I belong to God?' but 'Have I yielded to God that which
already belongs to Him?'" (J. H. McConkey, The Surrendered Life,
p. 17).
In a city in north China there was a girls' school.
The students grew in numbers which necessitated more buildings. Adjoining the
school were just the buildings needed, the property of a Chinese family. After
much bargaining a sale was effected. The papers were drawn up and the purchase
price paid. In the autumn the school fully expected to open work in the new
buildings. But they were unable to do so. Why not? The Chinese family had
not moved out. Purchase gives title but only delivery gives possession.
Christ has the title deed to your life. The price was
paid nearly two thousand years ago. It is His by the right of purchase. Have
you moved out that He may move in and occupy what He already possesses?
Christ has the right to exempt you from His property;
He is Lord and He has the right to command you to yield. But Christ's
way is to constrain by love rather than to conquer by force. So He beseeches us
by the innumerable mercies of God of which we are daily the recipients to yield
ourselves to Him.
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Romans 12:1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." |
Yielding is the glad, joyous, willing response of
love to love. "We love him because he first loved us." Bought with a
price, "therefore" we gladly glorify Him in our body and spirit,
which are His. "I beseech you" -- I have given My life in death for
you, will you not give yours in life for Me? True yielding is the utter
abandonment of love. It is the call of the Bridegroom "Rise up, my love,
my fair one, and come away," to which the Bride joyfully responds, "I
am my beloved's and his desire is toward me."
Oh! my friend, does this not take the
"must" out of surrender for you? Does it not answer the question
"Is it safe?" Have you only thought of yielding in the light of what
you would have to give up? To yield does involve a giving up but it means
giving up what really is not yours; it means giving up something only to get
something of infinitely greater worth; yes, it means giving up something that
He needs for His use to the One we love best; more than all it means giving up
something to the One who loves us with a love so great that He died for us and
now waits to bestow upon us all the exhaustless treasures that are ours in Him.
Can we not trust "the Man who died for us"?
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Romans 8:32, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" 1
Corinthians 3:21-23, "Therefore let no man glory in men. For all
things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or
life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and
ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." |
"Surrender taken alone is a plunge into a cold
void. When it is a surrender to the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself
for me it is the bright home coming of the soul to the seat and sphere of life
and power."
THE LIFE YIELDED -- WHAT?
We have seen what yielding is -- the transference of
the ownership and control of the life from self to Christ. But self will
relinquish nothing except under compulsion. So it is necessary to understand at
the outset just what the full measurement of a yielded life is.
May we clear the atmosphere by saying what yielding
is not? It is not mere subscription to a creed; nor is it a giving of oneself
to a certain kind or field of service; nor is it merely stripping the life of
certain evil or questionable practices. How many a person has said, "I am
afraid to yield myself wholly to the Lord for I know He will make me believe
something I can't believe, or will ask me to go somewhere that I do not want to
go, or will rob me of something that I want to keep." To such, yielding is
altogether a negative thing while in reality it is essentially positive. God
wants us. It is the whole of ourselves that He asks us to yield to Him
that our whole life may be lived unto the will of God.
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Romans 6:13, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." 2
Corinthians 8:5, "And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave
their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God." 1
Peter 4:2, "That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh
to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." |
Then God specifies the measurement a bit more
explicitly lest we be satisfied merely with "the saving of our soul"
or "the giving of our heart to the Lord." It is the easiest thing in
the world to use the phraseology of consecration while missing the reality of
it. It is possible to deceive ourselves by surrendering the invisible and
intangible thing while holding on to the visible and tangible. So God asks for
the body as well as for the spirit and soul. Read again Romans 12:1.
God leaves no loophole in this matter of yielding. He
knows full well how the beauty of a life may be marred and its testimony
nullified by the un-yieldedness of even one member of the body. Who can read
the epistle of James and not know that many a life fails of complete surrender
through an un-yielded tongue? What possibilities for covetousness through an un-yielded
eye? What paths of wickedness and worldliness are open before un-yielded feet?
What a catchall for gossip, slander and idle talk, is an un-yielded ear! What a
loss to God in His service is an un-yielded voice! God specifies the
measurement of surrender and it reaches out to include every member of your
body. "Yield your members as instruments of righteousness unto
God."
It is all-inclusive. Nothing is omitted and nothing is exempt. God has sanctified our whole personality. He has set it all apart as His own personal possession and for His own use. Our consecration is the counterpart of God's sanctification. God has taken us to be His own: He has said, "Thou art mine." We yield ourselves as those belonging unto Him and sanctify Christ, as Lord, in our hearts and say, "Lord, I am Thine, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
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1 Thessalonians 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1
Peter 3:15, R.V., "But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord." |
The measure of our yielding is the measure of our
human life. It includes everything inside, spirit, mind, heart, will,
affections. It includes everything outside, home, children,
possessions, occupation. It includes everything allied, friendships,
time, money, pleasures, life plans.
It includes our past, present and future. No matter
what the past has held of sin, sorrow or self it is all handed over to Christ
in a once-and-for-all committal. But some can surrender the past who find it
difficult to yield the present to Christ's control. There is the desire to
reserve a bit of ground. Others can surrender the past and present because
driven to it by disheartenment or desperation but they are fearful to put the
future wholly into His keeping. How do they know that God can be trusted to be
faithful or that they desire to live under His absolute sway for all time?
When giving a message on the yielded life at a
conference I noticed the anxious, troubled face of a woman on the front seat. I
said, "You are able to trust July to God but fearful to put September into
His keeping." Her face lighted up with a smile which was in truth an
acknowledgment of being caught in the very act of worry. After the meeting she
said, "That remark about committing September to the Lord hit me. I could be
very happy here now but I must have an operation in September and I have only
half enjoyed this beautiful place because I am worrying over September!"
Yielding includes our worst and our best. Some find
it very difficult to believe that God can accept or want them because there is
so much of "the worst" that persists in their lives. But "Him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" is an invitation extended to
the sinning saint as truly as to the sinner. Grace abounds from the beginning
clear through to the end of our lives. So no matter how often we have repeated
the same sin if we come yielding ourselves unconditionally to Him He waits to
receive us, and the blood of Jesus Christ is equal to any demand made upon it
for cleansing.
Others find no difficulty in bringing to God the
dregs of sin in their un-yielded lives but find it extremely hard to yield
their best to Him. In fact they see no necessity to do so. Here is someone with
very excellent judgment. The superior quality of it is recognized by the
possessor who almost believes in his infallibility on all matters. The result
is a domineering, overbearing person with whom it is exceedingly difficult for
others to work. This point was mentioned once before a group of Christian
workers. Afterward a missionary said, "You talked about me this morning! I
am that person with the good judgment and I am sure I have made things
difficult for my fellow missionaries. I see now that even my good judgment must
be yielded to the Lord."
Here is another who is very efficient and she holds
the same opinion of herself that a young businesswoman held who said, "Why
do I need to ask the Lord how to do something when, if I use my own good sense,
I know as well as He how to do it?" That is putting it very crudely but is
not our failure often due to a similar self-trust?
Perhaps here is one with a charming personality who
is extremely popular and easily draws a crowd about her. She can see the need
of some homely, unattractive person yielding herself to the Lord to be made inwardly
beautiful. But why should she do so? Does she not attract people already? Oh!
but to whom? To herself or to her Lord? Our best can hinder the revelation of
Christ through us as truly as our worst.
In taking the measure of our surrender to the Lord Jesus
it should be a settled matter that there can be no reservations. We cannot set
aside any part of our lives and earmark it "reserved." If Christ is
to be Lord, He must be Lord of all. We must let Christ begin at the center and
go to the circumference of our lives, laying hold of all in His path and
bringing it under His dominion.
It should also be understood that there can be no
substitutes offered to the Lord. We cannot buy God off with money or bribe Him
to accept our time, talents or service in lieu of ourselves. Having once
offered ourselves in a glad, willing yielding to the Lord, all that we have in
the way of natural endowment, acquired skill or bestowed wealth will accompany
such surrender but can never be accepted by God as a substitute for it. God
wants first of all "not yours" but "you."
Let it be understood also that we cannot bring just
the troublesome, unmanageable parts of our lives to God, asking Him for
spiritual repairs while we withhold the will, the heart, the mind. How much we
are like the man who took the hands of his clock to the jeweler and asked him
to regulate them as they did not keep time. "Bring me the whole
clock," said the jeweler, "the cause of the inaccuracy is not in the
hands." "No!" said the owner, "you will take it all to
pieces and it will cost me a lot! It is the hands that go wrong!" The
measure of our yielding is the measure of our life; the refusal to yield any
part of it, however small or insignificant it may seem to us, is an act of
rebellion and will make impossible the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our
lives. These lines we would do well to repeat frequently:
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"Have Thine
own way, Lord, Make
me and mould me |
THE LIFE YIELDED -- HOW?
Perhaps some reader has been brought to say, Lord, I
will yield to Thee. I see why I should yield, and what but
now tell me how. Because salvation from beginning to end is through
God's pure grace, He always takes the initiative in bringing us into a fuller
experience of our inheritance in Christ. So the Lord Jesus stands outside every
un-yielded part of your life and knocks and waits for your response. He wishes
to come in and fellowship with you in every part of your spiritual life but in
between the knocking and the entering something must take place, for Christ
never forces entrance. If He enters, the door must be opened.
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Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if
any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and
will sup with him, and he with me." |
Yielding to Christ is a definite act. It is
not a mere expression of a pious desire but it is the declaration of a
purposeful determination. It is not an often-repeated wish but it is a decisive
act of the will. To yield is to acknowledge Christ's claim to the perfect
possession, complete control and unhindered use of one's whole being and then
to act upon such an acknowledgment by a definite surrender of it to Him. Desire
becomes decision and decision crystallizes into action.
In A Memorial of a True Life by Dr. R. E.
Speer is recorded such a definite act of surrender by Hugh Beaver, a young man
of rare spirituality whose life was very marvelously used among college
students in a few brief years of service before God called him Home.
"Kutztown, Pa., Nov. 16, 1895.
This 16th day of November 1895, I, Hugh Beaver, do of
my own free will give myself, all that I am and have, entirely, unreservedly,
unqualifiedly to Him, whom having not seen I love, on whom, though now I see
Him not, I believe. Bought with a price, I give myself to Him who at the cost
of His own blood purchased me. Now committing myself to Him who is able to
guard me from stumbling and to set me before the presence of His glory without
blemish in exceeding joy, I trust myself to Him for all things, to be used as
He shall see fit where He shall see fit. Sealed by the Holy Spirit, filled with
the peace of God that passeth understanding, to Him be all glory, world without
end. Amen. Phil. 4:19. HUGH BEAVER."
Have you by such a definite decisive act of the will
yielded yourself, all that you are, and all that you have, to the Lord Jesus?
If not, will you not close this book for a moment and do it now?
Yielding to Christ is a voluntary act. We do
not yield because we have to but because we want to. It is not a matter of
coercion but of consecration. The Lord Jesus stands outside the door of that un-yielded
portion of your life and knocks but He will not force an entrance. It would
mean very little indeed to be allowed to enter if He did not find fellowship
and comradeship with the one within. It is love that desires to enter but
unless love is met by love the entrance would bring heartache rather than joy.
"What fragrance is to the rose, colour to the sunset sky, spotlessness to
the falling snow, voluntariness is to the surrender of the life." Of His
own free will he joyously, gladly laid down His life for us. With a smile and a
song He wants us to open the door to Him.
Yielding to Christ is a final act. Such a
yielding of the life as-we have been considering is irreversible; it need not
be repeated. If it has been done honestly it is for time and eternity. Great
perplexity of heart has come to countless souls over this matter of repeated
surrender so let us be clear as to what has been done and then we shall see how
irrevocable the act has been.
Through yielding to Christ we have acknowledged that
we are not our own and we have transferred the ownership of our life from self
to Christ. Henceforth the life is no longer ours. A resurrender implies that
the transfer had not been honestly made.
Of course one does not know all that is involved in
this initial act of surrender or all that it will require of one. When you
begin to live only and wholly for God there will be constant revelations of
portions of the life still virtually held by self as its own possession. The
heart will be made conscious of unwillingness to relinquish certain rights and
privileges so long enjoyed. What, then, must one do as these revelations come?
Does one need to make a surrender of the life over again? No, that was done once
and for all. Simply say, "Lord, this thing which I am still claiming and
holding as my own was part of that whole which I yielded to
Thee. It, too, belonged in that initial surrender. I thank Thee for Thy
faithfulness in showing me that it is un-yielded and just now I give it into
Thy possession and place it under Thy control."
There is an initial act of yielding that is
to be followed by a continuous attitude so that as we come to know God
and His will better through daily communion we yield instantly to Him any un-yielded
place or thing. Someone has tersely said, "Surrender is a crisis that
develops into a process."
May I use a very homely illustration? A man and woman
through mutual faith and love yield themselves to each other in marriage.
Neither of them knows then all that is involved in this surrender to each
other. The wife knew that her time must be given to making the home but she had
not realized how little opportunity would be left for the things she had
formerly done. She rebels and uses time for things which necessitates neglect
of home duties. Misunderstanding and estrangement follow. Or the husband knew
that money would be required to care for his wife and supply the needs of the
home but he did not know what extravagant tastes she had or what a poor manager
she was. So he has to use money he wished to spend on his business or his own
pleasure. He rebels and trouble ensues. What do this husband and wife do? Do
they remarry each time such a misunderstanding or disagreement comes? Even the
idea is absurd. If they are sensible and truly love each other they will
acknowledge that there was more in the marriage vows than they realized at the
time; each will recognize that all, not a part, was given in the mutual
surrender and each will be willing to yield unselfishly and gladly to whatever
makes for mutual interest and welfare. Happy and harmonious married life
demands not only an initial act of yielding but a continuous attitude of
yielding.
We who have loved the Lord and believed in Him are
united to Him. "Ye also are become dead to the law, by the body of Christ,
that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead." But no one of us ever knew when he entered into oneness with
Christ all that would be involved in such a union. But as we live with Him we
learn more of His desires, His will, His purposes, His plans, and we see many
things in our lives contrary to these. This does not, however, necessitate
another surrender but only as instantaneous yielding of the thing to Him.
From the human standpoint the first condition for a
life lived on the highest plane is the definite, voluntary, final yielding of
the life to Christ as Lord. The primary requirement for the fullness of the
Holy Spirit has been met. "When we surrender our sins and believe
we receive the Holy Spirit; when we surrender our lives and
believe, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The receiving of
the Spirit is God's answer to repentance and faith; the fullness
of the Spirit is God's answer to surrender and faith. At conversion
the Spirit enters; at surrender the Spirit, already entered,
takes full possession. The supreme human condition of the fulness of
the Spirit is a life wholly surrendered to God to do His will" (J. H.
McConkey, The Threefold Secret of the Holy Spirit, p. 43).
I once visited a college to conduct evangelistic
meetings. I was entertained in a home in which the guest room was over the
kitchen and was approached by an outside stairway. Very soon my trunk arrived.
I was alone in the house. As it was raining very hard, I decided to have the
trunk put into the downstairs. I started to open one door but could not -- it
was locked. I went to another door as there were three in a row, and put my
hand on the knob to open it but could not -- it too was locked. I tried the
third door but with no better success -- it also was locked.
Suddenly seized with a strange sense of aloneness I
rushed upstairs to the little back-room guest chamber -- the only place in the
house I was expected to use. To be a bit more conscious of the warm, living,
loving presence of my Christ I kneeled by the bedside to pray. Instantly He
spoke to me, saying, "Do you not know that is the way thousands of people
treat Me? They invite Me into their lives and then they put Me away in a little
hack guest chamber and there they expect me to stay. But I long to enter into
every room of their lives and share all their experiences."
Oh! my friends, where have you put the Lord
Jesus Christ in your life? Have you any locked doors? Have you put Him
away in some little hidden corner and given Him no freedom in your life? Has He
longed to get into the social hall of your life where all your pleasures are?
Has He put His nail-pierced hand on the door, longing to enter, but could not
-- for it is locked from the inside? Has He wanted to enter into the room where
your business was carried on and share in both its projects and profits? Has He
been denied entrance because shady, crooked practices went on there which His
all-seeing eye would detect? Has He longed to enter into the room where life
plans were being shaped and to help in the fashioning of them? And He tried the
door but entrance was denied -- locked from the inside? And has He who longs to
fill and to bless you gone back to His little upstairs back room with a grieved
and sorrowful heart?
I went from that college town to another. My hostess
there was a dear widow. Her home was very humble. We ate in the kitchen but oh!
such hospitality I have seldom enjoyed. Every good thing which her frugal means
would permit her to provide she had for me. The first day she said to me,
"Miss Paxson, my home is very humble but while you are here it is all
yours. Go where you want to and do just what you want to -- just make yourself
at home." And I, who travelled constantly, oh! how I spread out over that
whole house and made it mine the few days I was there!
Oh! friends, is the Lord Jesus living within you?
Have you ever said to Him, "Lord Jesus, I have only a very simple life to
offer you as a dwelling place but while you are here it is all yours.
Go where you want to, do what you want to -- just make yourself at home!"
He waits for just such an invitation. How quickly He will accept it when once
honestly offered and how He will spread out over the whole life -- truly making
Himself at home. If you have not unlocked all the doors from the inside and
given Him a gracious and glad invitation to enter, will you do so today?