SURRENDERING TO GOD'S RECOVERY PLAN
Surrendering to God's Recovery Plan Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
At just a cursory glance, the bible can appear to us as a book of rules to live by, but that would be doing a disservice to its grandeur. Still others may seek salvation by utilizing a mixture of God's goodness and our good works. But we still find ourselves coming short, realizing the greater emphasis must still remain upon God for my wretched condition. It was exactly this condition that caused Paul to cry out, and say, 'wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' (Romans 7) Even others find themselves frustrated with the futility of trying hard to do better and give over to fatalistic thinking (whatever will be will be).
So what's so great about God's recovery program? The truth is, the gospel way is much more comprehensive than we may have realized. But there is a key to its implementation. Surrender. Surrender, but not only of our sins. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves thinking, 'I surrender God, and now I'm going to do it.' But that is a platform destined to fail. The moral commands issued in scripture only foreshadowed the righteousness that was to come. For instance, God commanded us to be righteous. But he provided no platform to actually attain a truely moral nature. That was to be only once Christ came. But now that Christ has come, we tend to hold on to the old system. 'Touch not, taste not, handle not, all things that have an appearance of wisdom but do not avail against the carnal nature' (Colossians 2).
This surrender must come in full detail. Surrender not only of my sin, but of my 'way'. When I say my own way, I am not referring to embracing someone else's directive on how to live. There is a way we go about to establish righteousness. We strive to attain it. But in the end, the method itself is destined to fail, being rooted in the ability of the flesh to perform its tasks. So, this surrender must include surrender from the 'self' effort to obtain right standing with God. Our abilities, strengths, the power of thr will to perform. For to be sure, Paul said in Roman's 7, speaking from a perspective of repentance, says, I find the desire within me to do what is right, but the ability to do it, I do not find. So the surrender must include our own approach to appeasing or otherwise making it right with God based on merit.
Lastly, our surrender must include acceptance of God's way. If Repentance of sin is the precursor, the door to grace, then once we have so surrendered, we find we have one step. Believe. Grace comes by entering into the promise by faith into God's recovery plan. It is through this process God justifies and then 'sanctifies' the believer.
When our resistance is gone, our strivings cease, we enter into rest (Hebrews 4). This is where God is now able to do the work. We learn to flow with His presence, lean on His direction, be empowered by something other than sheer willpower. And we grow. God establishes us through grace. We begin the process of not doing, but becoming, conformed to His image and attributes, being now partakers and actually partaking of His natural attributes and core nature. So then, we, as Ephesians 2 so clearly points out, become His workmanship, made in His own likeness, as we grow from glory to glory.
Do sins cloud our way, do we often get hung up on trying to perform instead of transform? It is true. May we turn to God in these times and take the steps of surrender we just looked at in order to see the fruit of the Spirit work obedience into our lives. I am so glad we are saved by grace and enter into God's recovery program! "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)