Today's Surrender Is Tomorrow's FreedomНамуна

“Fully surrendered” means that as soon as I realize I am holding tight to something God wants me to release, I release it. We must continually open our hands and surrender things to God…sometimes more than once.

This is what we see at different times in Peter’s life, and we’re not that different from Peter.

In his first encounter with Jesus (Luke 5:1-11), Peter demonstrates what we often miss: The call to follow Jesus is a call to surrender. Peter laid down his pride, his experience, and ultimately his livelihood. Unfortunately, as we often do, Peter did not leave all of those things surrendered.

Peter is well-known for his chutzpah in asking Jesus if he could walk on the water like Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33). Here we learn from Peter that surrender is not optional. We either surrender to Jesus, or we surrender to ourselves. You see, until v.30, Peter was surrendered to Jesus; however, when things got dicier than Peter expected, he decided to instead surrender to his own knowledge, experience, and fears.

You might think that after this sinking experience Peter would have been ready to remain surrendered, but Peter is more like us than we realize. Peter’s greatest surrender came only when he had come face-to-face with his own ugliness. This happened in John 21:1-19, and notice that the encounter ends with the two words that started Peter’s surrender process three years earlier: “Follow me.”

Peter was at a crossroads. Both roads were named “Surrender,” but the arrow on one of the road signs said, “To Jesus,” and the other arrow said, “To Self.”

What are you holding tightly to that Jesus wants you to surrender to Him? What will it take for you to let it go so that you can hear Jesus say to you what he said to Peter: “Follow me.”