Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3;5-6
The Sermon Series on hope focuses on the finished work of Jesus and the power of His blood. It also reminds us that His saving grace is undeserved, unearned and unmerited, nothing of ourselves, everything is from Him. Yet we have this draw to self- effort and self-righteousness, because the enemy loves to make us feel like we have to work and do things to add to His perfect sacrifice. Which I find myself doing more often than I’d like.
Then today I heard a discussion where the person being interviewed said a friend of his did a study on the common phrase, “You need to be committed to Christ.” What they found out was the commitment part was not what the first Believers held to. Rather they said they needed to be surrendered to Christ. And there it is, the word committed means self-effort, we have to be good enough, do enough, pray enough, attend services enough, but when is enough, enough? No one really knows, because the Bible makes it clear serving Jesus is not about works. And as Paul said, “so that no one can boast.”
Surrender on the other hand, is about us giving up all our self-effort and trying. It’s about putting all our pride aside and humbly depending on God for everything. It’s about giving up our will for His. Not going to Him for suggestions, but going to Him for answers and direction, even if it takes awhile for Him to speak to us. Sounds easy enough, but for most people it’s quite difficult simply because we like to have control.
Today’s passage reminds us that when we trust Him and not lean on our own understanding, with all our hearts can He direct our ways. When we think about it, that may be the reason why it seems He doesn’t answer us, because we haven’t completely trusted Him and we continue to lean on our own understanding. Perhaps it’s about time we really think about how we’re leaning, on ourselves or truly on Him.
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