~Surrendering to God~

  Greetings!

 Like that beginning? Haha I was thinking of my old latin lessons, and thought that its funny how they used to say 'greetings' as their normal 'hello'. It was really random, but 'hello' just seems so boring when you say it every single post. So yes, greetings on the sabbath day! {LOL!}

 Anywhoo, I thought, I should blog. So here I am, and I was just thinking about what it means to surrender yourself to God. Then I thought, well what happens if you don't? And I found interesting answer that I'll share with you today.
  So in the post about Luke Nineteen, I talked about how we are Gods enemies, and about surrendering to God, repenting, turning up your white flag and just really leaving your sin army. I encourage you to read that post again, and just think about the concept. Because the Bible says, " "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We know God doesn't 'just say things'. Really, it could come anytime, especially with the state of this world. We don't want to be enemies of God when he comes. So lets prepare our hearts so we're not his enemies when he comes.
   In this post I'll really be talking about what happens we don't listen to God. As you can imagine the condition your left in is devastating. So lets no waste time!
   I'll begin with a scripture verse that is our answer for today. I found this in Psalm 81:11-12, "But My people did not listen to My voice, And Israel did not obey me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, To walk in their own devices." 
   The bible can't be more clear than this! What happens when we don't listen? He says MY PEOPLE did not listen to MY VOICE. We can hear God's word everyday, but are we truly listening? I'm guilty of not listening. In my sin, I zone out all to easily. Most of us can, AND THAT is what SATAN wants. For us NOT to listen to God calling us, because he is. BECAUSE he LOVES us. Praise God now and give thanks to him because he loves us. 
    Here is the horrible part. This is WHAT WILL and HAS happened to those who ignore the Holy God Of The Universe. We'll look at this in two parts. First, "So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart" The LORD GOD gives us Over to our FLESH. How much more sobering does this get? This is where we need to listen! We've seen what happens when we are given into our own FLESH. Look at the culture! Look at our Spiritual state! Do we even have a spiritual state? Or are we Godless? We ALL know the HEART is deceitful. The bible tells us that. In a message by Tim Keller he gives us an example of how the heart is deceitful. "My mind says 'I just did that!' my Pride says, 'I couldn't have done that.' When that happens, we succumb to pride, because no one wants to be bad. Its the worst part. Giving us over to that sin is horrible, because TO US, IN OUR SINFUL NATURE, that feels good. While we are repelled by the thought of hurting our God, there is a reason we still sin. And thats because of our sin nature. WE LOVE the SINFUL PART of us. Being Children of God, we have to defeat that. With Christ we can defeat that. Secondly, this SHOULD scare us. "To walk in their own devices." We are living examples of what happens when you live to your own devices. Look at the world today. Their is Hate, Anger, Bitterness, Immorality. You know why? Because each of us has CHOSEN to walk alone. HERE GOD SAYS HE WOULD LEAVE THEM to WALK their OWN devices. There can be nothing scarier than walking ALONE in this sinful earth. THINK about that. 
    Also, this is IN NO WAY, God's fault. He says in verses 13 and 14, "Oh that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in my ways! I would quickly subdue their enemies, And turn my hand against their adversaries." God Offers us this, but clearly WE DONT LISTEN. 
   So this is one example of what happens to us when we don't listen to God. This is scary, and real, it happens to everyone! I know I experienced this! Its called backsliding. We sin when we don't listen to God. I don't know about you, but there have been times when I've known my heart was being stubborn and I didn't listen. When that happens, my life changes. I'm more Impatient, I don't want to do what Gods saying, I'm not kind. Maybe no ones else notices, but I notice. Why am I acting like this? Because I have a broken relationship with God right now, and I need to fix it. You have to tell yourself, maybe Gods letting me walk alone, and maybe I'm realizing that when I walk alone, I fail. Everything changes. WE NEED TO SURRENDER TO GOD. If we call ourselves God's children, we have to do everything possible to surrender to God. Surrendering to God make us humble. So lets SURRENDER to God today.
     I'll close with this quote. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly who quoted it. But here it is:

    "You Can Not Enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless you surrender the part of yourself that you don't want to give up. For the Lord must be Lord of ALL, for you to enter into His Gates." 

    Each of us struggles with different sins. You KNOW your sin. God KNOWS your sin. Whether its just you two, or its obvious, ITS STILL SIN. Let us surrender our secret sins that we cling to and let Jesus Christ be LORD of all. AMEN? 

   "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"

~Hannah
  Hope your day is awesome, and may everything you do be for HIS glory.