Surrender to What Counts

You will never be worth much to God in your Christian life until you learn this lesson: surrender to what counts. The spiritual disciplines must include surrender. In fact, surrender is likely the first, before any other discipline. Surrender is the ultimate expression of thinking like Jesus (Phil. 2:5-11). Until the lesson of ultimate surrender is learned, we will continue to think it is about us and that success depends on us.
It is not effective to surrender to minutiae, the trivial, or the urgent. These are never worthy of becoming the focus of our lives. Surrendering to what counts is not easy, because a plethora of tasks, good projects, and commendable activities call for our attention. The choice of the best over the better or the good is seldom easily seen or done. But that which will be “number one” is the only thing worth giving our lives for.
Surrendering to what counts will cause us to discard as unimportant the things the world teaches us to value. Cross-carrying: that is what Jesus calls surrender. The kind of cross-carrying Jesus describes and demands will demote self-promotion, possessions, reputation, and the accolades of others.
Surrendering to what counts opens new doors of genuine service and effectiveness in the Kingdom, because all that matters is the business of the King.

God, help us this day to surrender ourselves fully. Help us to identify the things that really matter in life. May we surrender ourselves to what counts, because of the majesty of the One we know as Lord, Amen.