What does surrender look like?

I have been asking myself that question lately. Does it look like perfection and when you mess up you have to start all over again? Does it look like something sustainable that some only pick up on while others struggle with for the rest of their lives? What does it mean to deny yourself?

“If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” Matthew 16:24, 25 (NLT)

OR The Message Translation goes like this: “Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. ‘Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?’”

I have really been struggling again lately to keep from picking up the idols that God has already had me surrender and I worry because I know that they’re bad. One of them is cigarettes/vape and the other is kratom. I have not had them consistently since I have lost my job, but I am tired of self-sabotaging myself. I know that God is forgiving and merciful and He only wants what is best for me, but I am also concerned about when is enough enough?

I refuse to go back to consistently doing those things, but I also don’t want to go back to doing them even a little bit. I know His mercy endures forever and He is kind, loving and slow to anger, but I wonder half the time am I being too hard on myself or is this conviction a sign that I’m grieving Holy Spirit? Can it be both? Can God be loving and hurting at the same time because of my actions?

I know for someone like me, He has been gentler with me than I’ve heard Him being with other people when they screw up. Everyone responds differently to different teaching/loving techniques. Some need to be pushed while some need to be nurtured. You push someone who needs nurturing, you will push them further away from you. You nurture someone who needs the push, they will start walking all over you.

So maybe the answer is this: I know I need nurturing because I never had the proper nurturing I needed growing up. Maybe the love of a good Father and nurturing Holy Spirit is what I need as opposed to an over-bearing, hypercritical, pushy Father. I know in my head that God is none of those things, but my heart still has a hard time believing and receiving this truth. I also know that sometimes when nurturing isn’t working, the fear of the Lord has kept me from doing something stupid too. It’s a balance.

Does anyone else out here ever feel like after trying so hard and we fall short that it’s the end of the world and God is through with us? I do.

Almost every time. But maybe, just maybe, God’s grace is sufficient for me as long as I don’t take advantage of the wonderful grace God’s sacrifice on the cross gave me. He gave cascading grace to all of us. It is always and will always be about the cross. None of my accomplishments could earn me a way into heaven just as none of my mistakes can earn me a way into hell, as long as I turn back to the Lord and get back in right-standing with Him.

“And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.” Romans 7:18-25 (NLT)

We are not ever meant to walk this walk of righteousness in our own strength. We are also not meant to take God’s grace and mercy as a license to sin. However, there is a sweet saving grace that takes place when we have a moment of weakness and we accidentally sin against our Savior. The farther away we are from Him, the more likely we are going to sin against Him. The closer we are to Him, the less likely we are going to sin against Him.

This is why the Father wants our hearts and minds to be close to His. He doesn’t want our actions if there’s no real love behind it. He wants children that want to spend time with Him and learn from Him, not so we can perform and spread the gospel but so we can love Him wholeheartedly and love others as we love ourselves so that we can spread the message of the love of the Father to others.

 “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (MSG)