“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” —Matthew 7:21
Sadly, for the past 150 years or more, evangelicalism has developed a theology that offers assurance of salvation to almost anyone who prays a prayer or “makes a decision for Christ,” even though he may still be holding on to sin and bent on running his own life. The Scripture doesn’t recognize such a profession as genuine.
Surrender to God’s will is a mark of the truly converted. The terms of our surrender to Jesus are nonnegotiable and unconditional. What does He ask us to surrender? In a word, everything.
However, our surrender to Christ doesn’t involve a sense of genuine loss. To the contrary, Christian surrender brings us what we now see is beauty, life, joy, and true good. We’re given eyes to see the glory of Christ we previously despised (2 Cor. 4:4–6), and in surrendering to Him, we finally see the “surpassing value” of Christ over all the world ever could have given us (Phil. 3:8).
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Surrender: The Heart God Controls ©2003, 2005 Revived Hearts Foundation
Scripture taken from The CSB
Make it Personal
What part does surrender have in true Christian conversion? How does this inform our communication of the gospel?