Written By: Daniella Kirk

I’m giving You my heart and all that is within,
I lay it all down for the sake of You my King,
I’m giving You my dreams, I’m laying down my rights,
I’m giving up my pride for the promise of new life.

I surrender all to You, 
all to YouI surrender all to You, 
all to You
"I surrender" - Marc James

How many times have we sung this or something similar, believing with all our hearts that we mean it and will mean it forever? Swept up in His presence, the music, the emotion. 

Then it happens, our love for God collides with our wants, our needs, our love for something or someone else and in that moment we forget the promise we made, the commitment, the surrender. 

Matthew 16:24-26 – “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?”  

Time and time again Jesus calls us to count the cost of following Him. Just as it cost Him everything, even His life, to pay the debt that should have been ours for our freedom, so it will cost us everything to accept it in its fullness.

It seems a strange concept that to be free we must surrender everything, but I imagine this is much like a marriage. We meet someone and fall in love, and while our hearts are joyfully singing love songs, we must look ahead to the future we don’t know and weigh the cost of an unknown future of arguments, sickness, jobs/placements, fading emotions, and a multitude of other losses while asking ourselves, is this someone we would be willing to go through it all for, forsaking all others, until death do us part?

So it is with God, He promises us so much joy, love, laughter, adventure, strength, companionship, freedom, and a future so bright not even death can conquer it. Then He comes before us, like a man on his knee taking the hand of his most beloved, asking if we would face that unknown future, forsaking all others, for Him. 

John 15:13 – “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”

The beauty in this, is that we can fully trust that His love is pure and unchanging. Unlike earthly love, we do not have to gamble with how much love we will get in return, for He already took that gamble. While we were at our worst (and ugliest), with no guarantee that we would ever reciprocate, He went so far as to prove His love by dying for us and defeating death. So while our circumstances change we can be sure that He never will. 

I don’t know what cost you are weighing today or may one day face, perhaps there is something else fighting for your heart and attention, or maybe God is calling you to let go of something you’ve been clinging to thinking only that can give what you need, but friend, let me assure you that it will be worth it to surrender all. You can and you WILL be free. It may hurt for a time, you may have to grieve the loss, or you may just need the courage to live without it and rely fully on Him, but He WILL carry you through and lead you to life and joy. He never promises that it will be easy, just that it will be worth it.

Galatians 5:1 – “For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

I’ll end with the following scripture and pray that you will find the courage today to surrender all as the bride of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

James 1:2-4 – “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

What is it that is vying for your heart and attention? What do you feel God is calling you to let go of?

Written By: Daniella Kirk