“Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” -Romans 6:16 (NKJV)
If you are truly born-again then you have experienced this at least once in your life, in at least one area of your life. At least once you have come to recognize your inability to save yourself, and so you surrendered to Christ and trusted Jesus to do in you and through you what you could not do on your own. That surrender was, in essence, “taking up the Cross” with respect to your salvation. I have died to saving myself. I cannot save myself; and since I cannot, I will not. I will only trust in the Life of the Lord to do what I have (at last!) learned that I cannot do. This is what is means to “embrace the Cross” in the area of salvation. And we see that when the death to Self is thorough and complete – that is, when we stop trying to save ourselves and cast ourselves upon the grace of God, then God raises us from the dead. That which was impossible before is now accomplished by God. We are thankful recipients of His grace, and He receives all the praise and the glory since we have done nothing and He has done everything. This is the principle of the Cross.
It does not matter what your situation is; the Cross is sufficient. If the Cross is the power of God for salvation, then the Cross is also the power of God for your relationships, your spiritual growth and development, your life’s purpose, your encouragement and strength, and your victory over everything which hinders and distracts and comes against you. At one time in your life you learned you could not save yourself – that was the work of the Cross. Now, accept the work of the Cross and learn that just as you could not save yourself, neither can you love God, love your neighbor, forgive those who have sinned against you, cast out devils, be a bold witness for Christ, or fulfill your destiny in your own strength. Just as you once relied upon Christ to save you, so now you must rely upon Christ to live through you every day. Just as you continually rely upon Christ for salvation, so you must continually rely upon Christ for everything else.
“As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord…” That is the Gate. “…So walk in Him.” That is the Path. If you can admit defeat, if you can surrender yourself over to God in the area of “salvation” then you can (and should) do the same thing in every other area of your life. Walk in Him as you received Him: by unconditionally surrendering to His Will, His Purpose, His Power, His Lordship. Embrace the Cross! The sooner the better!
When we cease doing what we cannot do, then He begins to do what we cannot. This is the fruit produced by those who are truly born again. Our works are not religious works at all, they are simply the works of Him Who now lives in us. When we cease struggling and surrender to crucifixion then He comes forth in power and glory to raise us from the dead. This is what it means to be a Christian and a disciple of Jesus.
A brother came to me who suffered from a bad habit. He had tried every means known to man to break himself from this habit. No stone was left unturned. First he tried all the “Christian” cures: prayer, fasting, binding and loosing, exorcism, positive confession. He had made vows to God and had threatened himself with dire consequences if he ever broke his vows. But break them he did. When all these attempts to address the problem spiritually failed, he tried some psychological remedies: visualization, counseling, psychotherapy, self-help courses, motivational speakers, natural remedies, prescription drugs. He even wore a rubber band around his wrist so that he could snap it against his skin whenever his thoughts began to go astray. In this way (he had been told) the pain would interrupt his thought patterns and he would “snap” back into reality. He had red welts on his wrist from snapping the rubber band over and over. Obviously the rubber band trick wasn’t working. In fact, nothing had worked. This is the condition he was in when he sought me out.
“I have tried everything, and I cannot break this habit! What else can I do?” he asked.
“Let me repeat what I just heard you say,” I answered. “You said you cannot break this habit.” He nodded. “Then you asked, ‘What else can I do?’” He nodded again.
“Listen to what you just said,” I replied. “You said, ‘I cannot… what else can I do?’” He didn’t understand, so I tried again. “What you are saying is, ‘I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.’ Then, in the same breath, you are asking, ‘What else can I do?’ And the answer is: nothing. There is nothing else you can do. You have done it all. So if you really believe that you cannot do it then stop trying to do it. Every time you try, you are expressing a belief that you still think you can do it. Clearly you cannot.”
He thought on this and said, “Yes, but if I stop trying, then it will surely defeat me.” I answered, “You are already defeated. Now you must admit your defeat so that you can overcome. What do you have to show for all your trying? Nothing but a series of disappointing failures. Do you see that if you cannot, then all the trying in the world is pointless? If it is impossible for me to lift 1,000 pounds then I should not even attempt it. This habit is 10,000 pounds to you. Can you lift it? No. Do you still think you can? Then God will allow you to keep on trying, and will wait for you to give up trying. Sooner or later you must learn to stop trying to do what you cannot do. The purpose of these multiple failures is to teach you one thing: you cannot. If you will learn this lesson then it is worth failing a thousand times. If you have truly learned it this time then go to God and tell Him that you quit. Tell Him that you have tried to do it your way but you are powerless. Surrender it all to Him. Give up trying and admit that apart from Him it cannot be done. Go to the Cross and die with respect to this thing and see what God does with it.” He thought on this and wanted to disagree but his experience had proved that the more he tried the more often he failed.
Then something happened. He finally saw that there was no use in trying to do what he could not do. “I cannot,” he said, “Therefore, I will not!” A new hope had dawned within him: he saw that “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Lk. 18:27). But now he understood that in order for God to do what is impossible for man to do, man must first realize that it is impossible for man to do it! He saw for the first time that God can do more for him in five seconds of “giving up” than he could do for himself through a whole lifetime of “trying.”
So together we prayed, and his prayer went something like this: “Today, Lord, I am finished. I give up. I have tried everything and nothing has worked. This is impossible with me, but not with You. With You all things are possible! Therefore, I trust You to do what I cannot do. If you do it then I will overcome; if You do not do it then I will forever be defeated. Just as I trust in You to save me, so I trust in You to overcome this thing. I cannot, but You can.” Without realizing it, this brother had embraced the Cross. He “died” to all his efforts and God “raised him from the dead” with a tremendous deliverance.
Embracing the Cross is not a once-and-for-all act, but a daily attitude of knowing our insufficiency in order to know the sufficiency of Christ. Jesus asks us to take up the Cross “daily” (Lk. 9:23) and Paul said “I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31). Since we daily meet with temptations, tests and trials, so we must daily affirm and re-affirm who we are in Christ: the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated Branches of the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated Vine. As disciples, we take up the Cross daily, which means we are always in a state of surrender and submission to the Lord Jesus, constantly forsaking our own way for His Way. This moment-by-moment yielding to Him is summed up in this saying: “Not I, but Christ” (Gal. 2:20ff).
I agree Chip in my experience it is only when I have become so defeated in my own efforts that I have finally given up to the Lord and mean’t it and the Lord has taken over with amazing results.
Thank you
Chrissy
That was fantastic! Thank you!!! I was reading Galatians 5:16 and felt to read more about how to yield to the Holy Spirit and came across your article. That was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. What a relief! Thank you
Thank you for reading.
So liberating to a person trying to overcome a religious spirit. Word-Candy
Amen! I hope I remember to return to this teaching the next time I have spiritual amnesia! Blessings!
THANKS CHIP!
that was a WORD from HEAVEN for me. GOD BLESS YOU
I thank the Lord for providing us His Word everyday through this website. May the Lord continuously bless this ministry and your family.
Powerful truth…plain speech…great experience….Love it!
Blessed be the Name of the Lord,
Rashid
Thanks Chip. I am 70 years old. A Born Again Christian for about 35.Largish family. Recently retired -not from life but as a pharmacist of about 45 years. Great grandfather with my wife. and Love people. Want to help and I am doing so by recognising my lifes calling and applying my experiences and training and insights etc to encourage people to recognise and apply their gifts and callings. I commend those who have written to you seeking advice on what they see and try to achieve. This is real life -even for maturing Christians. They will find the truth to Set Them Free because of their humility. Good on them. Roger Drummond. Australia. ps You can publish this if you want.
Hi Chip.
i appreciate your teaching and have a number of your books. For along time I struggled with a nu,mber of things, but received a revelation – the truth. Which is that when Jesus died, I died. I no longer struggle and keep before me the fact that the work has been done. I see no need to go to the cross, but only to keep the fact that ” I am dead”, because He died, and I died to sin with Him. I was buried with Christ, raised with Christ, and am now living in heavely places with Him.
what freedom!!
Blessings,
Audrey
Awesome testimony God is awesome able and worthy to be praise. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
God really revealed this to me in a deep way lately too.
The spirit has been speaking to me about my words and the more I desired to change them
the more it became ugly. He pushed my faith to the limit with this one. It was obvious that it
was the impossible feat.Only faith in the God of the impossible was going to get me the victory, because the words come from the heart and I know that I can’t change my heart!
But how,but how? I started to come everyday with my sorrow and be real before Him. If you
don’t do this I’m going to die in my sin but since I know that you are doing the prompting I know that it is your will to change my heart so I’m going to crazily believe that you can and will do this and I’m going to believe You instead of what I see. Happy are those who believe without seeing…..This is the strenghtening of our faith without any glory to ourselves. It’s crazy stuff but oh how so very wise…God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world. It seems like a contradiction. What seems right side up to us is actually upside down!!!!!
Our crazy faith is the only thing that gives us victory over this world. All of a sudden I stopped saying condemning things because I just didn’t see them that way anymore. It wasn’t a fight…..the real fight was to believe that my God could actually do this through me without any help on my part besides declaring that I knew he was willing and able to do it and that He would do it when He decided that I had truly learnt the lesson that My Father wanted me to learn through it. He was only treating me as his child. Thank God that He doesn’t leave me alone and decieved. He has one crazy beautiful plan.
I too need prayer for a smoking habit that I’ve had for years. I don’t “get” the whole “let Jesus do it”, or “just surrender and Christ will give you the victory” encouragements. To “stop struggling” with a habit but yet “die to self” seems an oxymoron to me.. forgive me… I mean no disrespect to the Lord, or His Word, but if I could “die to self”, or “surrender” then I wouldn’t still have this habit. Where is the victory, or power for Christians who have battled such things for many years and cannot stop, but yet many, many sinners can lay down a habit at the blink of an eye? I have to believe it does come from one’s own will power, or desire to stop whatever the habit may be. I do not spiritually enjoy this habit, but my flesh enjoys it, and I do not believe I have enough desire to quit yet, but at the same time… I hate that I do it. Where do I go from here?
Love your teachings… God bless!
Sharon
Hmmm… well, you might hate it, but you don’t hate it enough. Not yet. Anyone can change as soon as they stop associating pleasure to their actions and begin associating pain. That’s one reason why sinners can stop doing things that keep Christians bound. It can be anything – smoking, food, drink, etc.
Don’t give up. Thank you for reading!
How do you get to where you hate it enough to change? Go to the hospital and find some people dying of emphysema, gasping for breath, desperate for air. Google some pictures of black lungs eaten up with cancer. Imagine your family gathering around you on your death bed while you’re coughing and hacking. Not a pretty picture, is it? Your mind associates too much pleasure to smoking and not enough pain. Start linking “pain” to the smoking instead of “pleasure” and you’ll quit.
That’s because all addictions are mental as well as physical. In fact, it is more mental than physical. And spiritual. But don’t make it into some impregnable “stronghold” that is beyond your control. You have total control over what goes in your mouth. And as long as you get more pleasure from smoking than not smoking, you will choose smoking every time. I’m not a smoker but food and drink were addictive to me. Here’s what I learned: you can’t remove a desire, you have to replace it with an even stronger desire. Easier said that done, but it works. You may need some extra help, like an accountability partner or counselor, to help you break through. But you can do it. Don’t be discouraged.
Thanks brother again, for functioning for what your were created for in the Body of Christ…… We are growing in grace and faith daily. The cross is what we need daily! Lord Jesus we are walking with you, we want to do it daily, remind us at any moment to turn ourselves to you and go to the cross right away. Amen in Jesus name.
I am realising through the Embrace the Cross internet study that I’m stuck in some really bad daily habits. I find I can pray, journal & read the bible, in the morning , but then I reason that somehow God will automatically ‘rescue’ me from my temptations without me having to ‘die’ for the rest of the day. Disobedience is rife in my life in the afternoon…sadly.
He will rescue me if I yield…but I’m in such a mess…I know I need to bring my self to the Cross and die daily and admit I can’t break these time wasting habits unless I surrender ALL to him. I thank God for Chip, & this article. I guess I’m just realising that even after 100,000+ failures I’m only partly yielding on a daily basis, not fully yielding. It is a struggle but I know I am the problem not God, for His Life through Christ Jesus never fails, & I need not struggle – just ‘die’!!!
God bless everyone for their encouraging comments on this website and this page.
Amen! I’m happy to find someone with the same Spirit. I was reading and thought to myself:have I written this. 😀
Just to add a thought. As God told to Paul that His grace is sufficient for him. Likewise it is with me. God’s strenght is made perfect in our weakness. There was a time I was terrified to death of my weakness, but He has done such a miracle in me that now I can rejoice in my weakness. 🙂
thank you very much jesus for chip
Your message is the story of every genuine seeking believer, and surely a part of my experience. We are (I am) so complicated.
I appreciate the example of the brother, who with one breath said “I cannot,” and with the next breath said, “what can I do?”
It sounds like Romans 7, when we try to do what we cannot do, until we confess, “o wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?”
In John 15, Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing.”
Paul echoed this thought in Philippians in a positive way,
“I can do all things in Him (Christ) who empowers me.”
Thanks, brother! Keep letting the light shine in your words!
Thank you! This is sooo where I am at. I surrender! “All to Jesus I surrender…”
thankyou Jesus…
To die is against human nature, but to live we must die, there was a time in the life of Jeremiah when the message he was told to tell the people was, fight and you will die, surrender and you will live.
God has called us to be Holy and He is Holy. This (teaching)is with out a doubt the piece of the puzzle that is necessary to accomplish that level of living. With out worry as Yvette mentioned and is stated in Phil 4:6, in victory in Christ Jesus, surrendered to the work of the cross. How many of us do not accept the finality of the work of the cross when it comes to sin? Sin is an old habit you once walked in (1 Pet4:3), and like all habits they can be replaced, our flesh can be retrained. Surrender to the work of the Cross of Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary. Like an alcoholic in AA, we have to make the commitment to “stay clean and sober” only unlike an AA member it is not something we have the ability to do, but something that God does in and through us.(Lk 18:27) We entered into a covenantal relationship with God. His part… cleanse us, forgive us, empower us with every spiritual blessing. Our part, be dead to sin and alive to God(Rm 6:11-14) Enter into a covenant with Him to “Be strong and courageous” (Jos 1:9) Your shield of protection against the temptations of Satan is that covenant, that commitment of faith, that level of experiencial knowledge that comes from the finality of the work of the cross. Satan will temp you, that is certian, he is not going away just because you entered into this commitment with Jesus. Take your sword (the verse the Lord gave you that applies to your situational sin) and swing it everytime satan temps you. Want to lose weight, everytime you touch the refer door, quote your verse, have an impure thought, quote your verse. After enough swings of your sword, after enough declarations of your faith, after enough of following Jesus’s example, he defeated satan with the Word of God, satan WILL go away only to return at a more oportune time (Luke 4:13) Remember 1 Cor 6:19b-20, “you are not your own, you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God, in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s”
The Lord gave us the revelation of the cross about 8 years ago. It has totally changed our life… humbling ourselves each day under the mighty hand of God that He might transform us to be more like Him and less of us. I have also come to know that the cross will help the believer to discern between truth and error. False teaching, cannot stand up to the message of the cross. By embracing the Cross we are able to overcome the deception, trials and spirit of Anti Christ in the last days. I am praying that many eyes and ears will be opened through your School of Ministry. Thank you for hearing the voice of God and proclaiming the Good News of the cross!
Gal. 2:20 Not I but the Christ in me. I surrender! trying to put a circle in a square, a square in a circle; pleasing man instead of God – the simplicity of Christ is so hard to hold on to. “Man” is not looking for simplicity. I have found that The Way becomes complicated when I surrender yet again to the ways of man and not Christ.
I will surrender to Christ daily.
Do I understand the whole revelation that you are saying in this article. I do understand Gal 2:20 – But not I, but the Christ that is in me. Thank God.
I thank God for Jesus, the Holy Spirit and this website.
To God be the glory.
I love this article. I always know something is what God wants me to hear when it is relatively simple yet I cannot grasp it completely. My question is: Then what? What does “surrendering to God” look like? I know I have done this in other areas of my life (relationships, money, education, parenting). But I have a major obesity problem and I have tried everything and I don’t feel there is in any hope but in Jesus. I just don’t know what that practically looks like. I am so obese that it effects my everyday life. I don’t have major health issues yet, but I know that is around the corner if I don’t do something. So, does “surrender” mean that I just stop trying to be accountable for what I put in my mouth and just “let it go” over and over again? That’s what we do with other heart-issues. Do I just trust God that even if I never lose weight,He will take care of me. And if I die at a young age because of this, He will take care of my husband and children? Why is that one so hard for me to believe? I think it’s guilt and my sense of responsibility that tells me I need to keep being “accountable” . Or does it mean to just take things one moment, one decision, at a time, focus on the obedience to God with food/exercise and not the result we are seeking? Can someone please help me see this a little more clearly?
KIM LIFE IS HARD BUT IF WE LET GOD TAKE CONTROL HE WORKS EVERYTHING OUT FOR OUR GOOD
DONT WORRY JUST TRUST GOD AND HE WILL BRING YOU THROUGH YOU CONCERNS
sorry that should say wear us out!
A very needed reminder. Oh wretched men and women we are when we try in our own strength to produce fruit.
Amen! And isn’t that what the enemy of our souls loves to do, wear us put? That is why the 10 virgins ALL fell asleep, worn out from striving. Let us be those who are at rest seated with Him in Heavenly places that know when He is ready to move and be the ones that cry out the message that the Bridegroom is coming to visit, wake up and stop striving…very well said Chip!
There is another thing that hinder us when we don’t have the problem of bad habits and that thing is worrying. Worries grow in the soul like a thousand tiny hard red veins. We take charge, and we don’t realize that is due to worry. Like Abraham laid it down on the altar, because he realized that is not taking charge but to have faith. We must learn to trust our Lord, and laid it all on the altar at the foot of the Cross.
Chip,
Great post and thanks for the insights. Many times we struggle to overcome our flesh when the only thing God requires is that we come to the Cross and let it do its work. And truly we must “die daily” but, we overcome through the grace and mercy of the Pattern Son, who also endured the cross and set an example for us.
Blessings,
Steve
Chip-this is such a great post. Truth so often bypassed in religious circles, as your friend found out. And very timely as so many are falling prey yet again to New Year’s resolutions to do something they’ve failed at many times by trying to ‘do it’ the same way again. Nothing wrong with setting goals etc but your friend sounds like so many I know who’ve vowed around this time of year to quit smoking, lose weight, start a regular quiet time, whatever it may be…and intend to do it through will power or dicipline of their own strength and will again fail and feel defeated and guilt-ridden. Why is surrender so difficult for us? Me included….this year I think I shall allow myself to learn it through much practice! I have a whole list of things I know I can’t do but He can. I QUIT! ha
Thanks for all you do and blessings in the New Year.
Amanda