If you’ve ever had children or been around them, you know they don’t give up easily. They want what they want, when they want it, how they want it. If they don’t get it, they’ll let you know their displeasure with tears and tantrums. As we get older, our tantrums are no longer socially acceptable, but surrendering our desires to someone or something else is still a challenge.
To ‘surrender’ is a battle term. It means you raise your white flag and lay down your rights to the conquering army or commander. As Christians, we submit our imperfect wills and plans and entrust them to our perfect and loving God. Surrender always involves trust. It means that even when we can’t see what’s happening or why, we trust that God’s plans are better than ours–even when it hurts. We willingly say, “I don’t know what you’re doing, God, but I’m going to trust you and get out of your way.”
If you’re feeling a tug on your heart to surrender your will and life to God, here are 20 verses that will encourage you, and remind you how good the surrendered life to God is.
20 Bible Verses on Surrendering to God
If you’re feeling a tug on your heart to surrender your will and life to God, here are 20 verses that will encourage you, and remind you how good the surrendered life to God is.
- Matthew 16:24 (ESV)
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. - Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. - Isaiah 45:9 (ESV)
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? - Galatians 2:20 (ESV)
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Matthew 26:39 (ESV)
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. - John 5:30 (ESV)
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. - Psalm 37:5 (ESV)
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. - Romans 6:13 (ESV)
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. - Romans 12:1 (ESV)
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. - Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. - Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. - Luke 14:33 (ESV)
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. - John 4:34 (ESV)
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. - John 3:30 (ESV)
He must increase, but I must decrease. - Isaiah 64:8 (ESV)
But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. - Galatians 4:24 (ESV)
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. - Matthew 11:28 (ESV)
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. - Psalms 55:22 (ESV)
Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved. - Philippians 3:7-8 (ESV)
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.
Have thine own way, Lord
Just as children learn to surrender their will to their parents, we must also learn to surrender our wills to our heavenly Father. We no longer fuss about what we want, when we want it, and how we want it. Instead, we say, like Puritan Richard Baxter, “Lord, what thou wilt, where thou wilt, and when thou wilt.”
Help us, Lord, to say, “Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, we are the clay.”
Cara
Related Posts:
20 Bible Verses About God’s Provision
Bible Verses About Intimacy with God
20 Bible Verses for Revival and Spiritual Awakening
P.S. The more we trust God, the easier it becomes to submit our wills to his. Understanding our union with him is the key to making submission a natural outflow of our love and relationship to him. Check out this free list of the blessings (benefits) that are yours when you are in Christ.
