Really giving your life to God

Dear friends in Christ,

I am blessed to write another article and I thank God for the opportunity. This year is really passing so quickly and it makes one realise how quickly life passes. That makes me aware of how extremely blessed I am to know God and to be saved. So many people live their entire lives and never accept Jesus and that is heartbreaking.

Often we find ourselves in church or at a Christian gathering where an altar call is made and people are asked to raise a hand or stand up if they have not yet given their lives to God and would like to accept Jesus as their Saviour. As a child, teen and young adult I must have given my life to God more than a dozen times! Do you have any idea what I am talking about? You attend church on a Sunday and the message is so intense and emotional and you decide, honestly, that you want to give your life to God. So you get up when the preacher does the altar call, you pray the “sinner’s prayer” and the pastor congratulates you on now being saved and born again. You go home and for two or three days you feel positive with your new life and the good choices you are going to make from now on.

Two weeks later you realise that somewhere along the way you forgot all about this new life and you end up being the same old you, doing the same bad things, swearing, gossiping, being rude and selfish and all the daily things you used to do before you “gave your life to God.” A couple of months later you watch a Christian movie or you listen to a worship song and something speaks to your heart and right there and then you decide to give your life to God again and this time you really mean it. Only you forget about it again in a week’s time. This cycle can repeat itself for years or even a lifetime and it is heartbreaking to hear how people lose hope along the way and start feeling guilty for “failing God” every time they think they have given their lives to Him. The day I finally gave my life to God and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord, I realised that I had been telling myself that I was born again for years and years and I “had given my life” to God over and over, but I honestly had no idea what it even meant in reality!

Dear friends, if this sounds familiar to you, I would like to explain a couple of things about what it means to give your life to God that might help you. Many people don’t understand at all what it means to give your heart to God, your life to God. What it does NOT mean is that you promise to try harder not to sin. It does not mean you promise to try and have more faith. It does not mean you promise to read your bible more. It does not mean that you promise to do more for God so that you can receive more in return FROM Him.

If you decide to give your life to the Lord, you need to understand that doing it means exactly what is says. Giving your life to God. Handing over the control of your life completely and totally to God. The moment you stand up and declare that you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord and you give your heart to God, you effectively hand over your body, mind, soul, spirit and everything that forms part of them. That means every problem you face, every dream you have, everything you own and everything you love has to be handed to God right there and then and you have to accept that you have no say over them anymore.

God has to replace even the dearest and most important things in your life to such an extent that you can honestly say you have died off to all of those things and compared to what God means to you, none of those things mean anything whatsoever. The day you do that and you honestly mean it when you do it, is the day you will be born again and Galatians 2:20 will start making sense to you. Gal 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Dear friends, once you have died, you cannot wake up tomorrow and just take your life back, can you? It is exactly the same with giving your life to God. Once you hunger for God so much that you can honestly give you life to Him, you cannot wake up a day or two later and carry on like before! If you die to the desires of your sinful nature and place God at the Top of everything in your life, no sinful desire will be strong enough to pull you away from God and back to your old life again!

People give their lives to God in many instances because it is preached daily that God will then help you and send you the outcomes for all you challenges and save you when your life is falling apart. So many people give their hearts to God because they want their problems sorted out. Then if it doesn’t happen, they start doubting the promises in God’s word and fall back to who they were before. Why does this happen? Because God does NOT want us to give our “lives” in exchange for whatever we can get back from Him!! God wants us to give Him our lives out of thankfulness and love because of what He ALREADY DID for us- not what we still want from Him!! He has already done all that can be done for each of us so how could we expect more from Him??!

And yet, He IS able to give us each and every desire of our hearts and He wants to give us the outcomes for each and every challenge we face. He WANTS to give us abundant life and bless us in every way!!! Then why do so many of us not experience abundant life after we were told we would receive it if we give our lives to God??

Because we miss the point completely! The moment you give up everything and swap it for God and His kingdom, He sees your heart and He starts giving you back so much more even than you ever gave up for Him! The important thing is to give those things up first so God can truly take the number one spot in your life. Matt 6:33 “But seek FIRST His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Dear friends, the day you can truly seek His kingdom first and die to all the things that were once so important to you here on earth, you will know what it means to give your heart to God and you will experience the richness of His blessings, your hopes and dreams will become realities and your challenges will disappear in front of His Glorious power and love for you!

Thank You God for loving us first and for always being true to Your promises. Father help us to understand what it means to truly give ourselves and our lives to You. Thank You that when we honestly seek You first, You give us so much more than we can ever dream of or desire.

Lord help us to give it all up to put You first. You are everything and You are all to me.

Amen.

Be fearless and expect the unexpected in Christ.

Lizz