The battle is lost or won in the secret places...

  The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world. The Spirit of God apprehends me and I am obliged to get alone with God and fight the battle out before Him. Until this is done, I lose every time. The battle may take one minute or a year, that will depend on me, not on God; but it must be wrestled out alone before God, and I must resolutely go through the hell of a renunciation before God. Nothing has any power over the man who has fought out the battle before God and won there.

If I say, "I will wait till I get into the circumstances and then put God to the test," I shall find I cannot. I must get the thing settled between my self and God in the secret places of my soul where no stranger intermeddles, and then I can go forth with the certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity and disaster and upset are as sure as God's decree. The reason the battle is not won is because I try to win it in the external world first. Get alone with God, fight it out before Him, settle the matter there once and for all.
...Oswald Chambers

And when you do yield yourself...

And when you do yield yourself in absolute surrender, let it be in the faith that God does now accept it. That is the great point, and that is what we so often miss-that believers should be thus occupied with God in this matter of surrender. I pray you, be occupied with God. We want to get help, every one of us, so that in our daily life God shall be clearer to us, God shall have the right place, and be "All in all." And if we are to have that through life, let us begin now and look away from ourselves, and look up to God. ...Andrew Murray image

Give God your all...

Give God your all. He doesn't ask us to give Him only what we would consider perfect. Give Him everything, every scrap, every part of us, everything you've kept hidden on the back shelf of your heart. Give him those things that you judge as not good enough. Hand over those areas of your life that appear to be too broken to be used. God can and will transform the good, the bad, what you deem the ugly. Let Him sift and sort things through. You'll be amazed at what the Master Creator can make out of what you might consider the shambles of your heart. ...Katherine Walden image

We must meet our hurts...

We must meet our hurts, our disappointments, our frustrations, the malice of our enemies, the provoking habits of our friends-our trials and temptations of every sort-with an attitude of active and practical surrender and trust. Only then will we be able to spread our wings and fly above them all to the "heavenly places in Christ." From that vantage point we will be able to see our problems through the eyes of Jesus, and they will lose their power to harm or distress us. ...Catherine Jackson image

Surrender

I'm giving You my heart

All that is within

I lay it all down

For the sake of You my King

I'm giving You my dreams laying down my rights

I'm giving up my pride

For the promise of new life

And I Surrender

All to You, all to You

I'm singing You this song

I'm waiting at the Cross

All the world holds dear

I count it all as loss

For the sake of knowing You

For the glory of Your name

To know the lasting joy

Even sharing in Your pain

...Marc James

Total surrender to God must come in small details...

Total surrender to God must come in small details as it comes in big details. It's nothing but that single word, "Yes, I accept whatever you give, and I give whatever you take." And this is just a simple way for us to be holy. We must not create difficulties in our own minds. To be holy doesm't mean to do extaordinary things, to understand big things, but it is a simple acceptance, because I have given myself to God, because I belong to him-my total surrender. He could put me here. He could put me there. He can use me. He cannot use me. It doesn't matter because I belong so totally to him that he can do just what he wants to do with me.

Lent is a time when we relive the passion of Christ. Let it not be just a time when our feelings are roused, but let it be a change that comes through cooperation with God's grace in real sacrifices of self. Sacrifice, to be real, must cost; it must hurt; it must empty us of self. Let us go through the passion of Christ day by day. ...Blessed Teresa of Calcutta image

God is not looking for ways to make you "squirm."

God is not looking for ways to make you "squirm." He does, however, want to be Lord of your life. Whenever you identify a place where you refuse to allow His lordship, that is a place He will go to work. He is interested in absolute surrender. God may or may not require you to do that very thing you identified, but He will keep working until you are willing for Him to be Lord of all. ...Henry Blackaby image

This way of seeing our Father in everything...

This way of seeing our Father in everything makes life one long thanksgiving and gives a rest of heart, and, more than that, a gayety of spirit, that is unspeakable. Some one says, "God's will on earth is always joy, always tranquility." And since He must have His own way concerning His children, into what wonderful green pastures of inward rest, and beside what blessedly still waters of inward refreshment is the soul led that learns this secret. If the will of God is our will, and if He always has His way, then we always have our way also, and we reign in a perpetual kingdom. He who sides with God cannot fail to win in every encounter; and, whether the result shall be joy or sorrow, failure or success, death or life, we may, under all circumstances, join in the Apostle's shout of victory, "Thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ!" ...Hannah Whitall Smith photo