Please can you tell me how to live a whole life surrendered to Jesus?

 

British Airways Christian Fellowship's newsletter encourages every member to surrender all to Jesus.

 

Dear All,
I, Paul, had the most encouraging request from my Pastor and church admin team yesterday...A man emailed the church and asked this question:

Please can you tell me how to live a whole life surrendered to Jesus? May you answer me please?

They passed it on to me and asked if I could answer it for him and maybe get connected and call. I spent my lunchtime in the garden preparing a response and proof-read it after I had finished work for the day. I really enjoyed preparing that answer under the Lord's direction...?? So much so that while keeping anonymity I am going to share with what I felt inspired to reply to him.  I hope you will all 'enjoy' my take on "how to live a whole life surrendered to Jesus" and take some thoughts or lessons away about our sharing faith with those searching their souls for answers.
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Hello G,
Wow! What an amazing question. I don't think there could be a more important one to ask in the whole of our lives.
I will try respond now but if you have follow-up questions I will gladly try to answer.

How do I tell you how to live a whole life surrendered to Jesus? For you to ask that question you must already be sensing that it is an important thing to do. Jesus says in the book of John Chapter 10 verse 27

 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

Surrender begins in its simplest form as making a decision to do so; to speak that out to Him and trust that He has heard you. In the Bible in the book of Romans Chapter 10 verse 9 it says that

"if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

We then have to walk that out in every day life in our listening to Him and in our thoughts, words and deeds. It will mean having a hunger for His Word (the Bible) and being obedient to the wisdom and instruction in it - especially the things that Jesus taught that are recorded in the New Testament, especially the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John but also taught & recorded in all the other NT books.

It means too learning how to pray. There are some wonderful scriptures that encourage us how to do this. One of my favourites which is rich in wisdom is in the book of Proverbs chapter 3 verses 6-7 which says:

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

These 2 verses not only tell you how to pray but also how to surrender completely to Jesus.
If we Trust the Lord with all our hearts, then we shall truly be surrendered to Him and will trust Him with our lives and talk to Him about anything and everything. We will trust that He died to save us from our sins; We will trust that He means good towards us and not harm; We will trust that His Word will give us correction and direction  and we can trust that our confession of wrong doing will be heard by Him & our genuine repentance received by Him with grace and mercy. Trusting fully in Jesus counteracts leaning on our own (carnal) understanding.

When we acknowledge Him in all our ways  (pray about everything and listen to the answers He shows in the Word or speaks to our conscience) we realise that He really does direct our paths (give us wisdom, direction and instruction).   In those 2 verses is a treasure- house of confidence to "live a whole life surrendered to Jesus". It is also good to tell others that you have surrendered and why. That is called your witness of testimony of why Jesus has become real  to you.  

I do not want to swamp you with saying much more but if this has made you hungrier still to obey His ways then the following scriptures represent more good 'food' from the bible to feast on:
Philippians Ch4: verses 4-9 especially verses 6-7
1 Thessalonians Ch5: verses 16-19
Hebrews Ch12: verse 2
Matthew 11:28-29
Joshua 1:8-9
Proverbs whole of chapter 4 especially verses 20-23
A good bible translation in readable English is the New King James version (NKJV)
A good bible look-up source on the internet is biblegateway.com
Their verse for today is very relevant to your question:

Verse of the Day

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

(Galatians Ch2: verse 20 NKJV)
That verse itself G, is a good summary of whole life surrender to Jesus!
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