Pressing into His Presence

Walking in the Power of Surrender

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Shelley Quinn

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Series Code: PHP

Program Code: PHP000017


00:01 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn.
00:02 Please join us today on Pressing Into His Presence to learn
00:07 how we can walk in the power of surrender.
00:32 Welcome to Pressing Into His Presence.
00:34 This is a series that is teaching us how to have
00:37 a more intimate level of prayer with God.
00:40 And last week we began on the segment of supplication.
00:44 Today we will be continuing that, and we will learn how
00:48 we can walk through the steps of surrendering to God's control.
00:53 If you're following along in your companion book,
00:56 Pressing Into His Presence, we're starting
00:59 today on Page 143.
01:01 What does the word surrender mean to you?
01:06 You know, judging by audience responses that I've received
01:10 over many years, I think I can guess.
01:13 If you're a typical man, you'll most likely think of surrender
01:17 as a sign of weakness, of giving up, the war is over,
01:21 you're being taken captive.
01:24 And if you're a woman the word surrender might send a shudder
01:28 down your spine, accompanied by visions of someone
01:31 controlling your every action.
01:34 Is this along the line of your thinking?
01:36 For most people it is.
01:39 Yet we Christians tell the poor worldly soul to whom we are
01:44 witnessing that all they have to do is surrender to God.
01:48 How can we better explain this in a way that sounds inviting
01:53 to their carnal ears?
01:55 What steps do we offer as instruction?
01:59 You know, several weeks after God identified the obstacle
02:04 to my Christian advancement as a wall of self-preservation,
02:10 I still struggled with surrender.
02:13 Oh how I desired to fully submit my life to the Lord.
02:18 I just didn't know the way.
02:21 And one morning I was paraphrasing 1 John 2:6
02:25 and said, Thank You, Father.
02:28 Thank You that because I abide in Jesus that I walk
02:33 just as He walked.
02:35 Well, I knew I was calling things that are not as though
02:38 they already were, but my eyes were threatening tears because
02:43 it was so painful to recognize how little progress I'd made.
02:48 It was time to wrestle with the Lord just as Jacob did.
02:54 And just as Jacob prayed, I prayed, Oh Lord I'm returning
02:59 Your word to You. You promised it would not return to You void.
03:04 You promised to watch over, to perform it.
03:07 Please Lord, show me how to walk in surrender as Jesus walked.
03:12 I will not let You go unless You bless me
03:17 with a changed character.
03:19 Cause me to follow in Christ's footsteps.
03:23 And instantly, as I was praying, in my mind I saw this gigantic
03:31 elephant, and next to him was this very tiny little, teensy
03:37 weensy sugar ant.
03:39 You know, it's hardly visible.
03:41 And I thought, What does this mean?
03:43 And the Lord impressed this thought on my mind:
03:47 He said, Shelley, the greatest strength that you can muster
03:52 is like that of the tiny ant.
03:55 Whereas My power, by comparison, is like that of the elephant.
04:00 Why would you want to walk in your limited human strength
04:07 when I make all of My power available to you?
04:12 When I ask you to surrender, child, I'm asking you
04:17 to accept My power.
04:19 Suddenly Galatians 3:3 came to my mind.
04:24 This is where Paul said, Oh are you so foolish,
04:27 you foolish Galatians?
04:29 Having begun in the Spirit, are you now trying to perfect
04:34 your walk by the flesh?
04:36 Yes, yes I had been so foolish.
04:40 Trying my utmost to walk with God, I'd been drawing only on
04:45 my own sugar ant strength.
04:48 It was like that tiny little insect trying to roll
04:52 a boulder up a hill.
04:54 And now I realize each morning, every morning that I wake up
04:59 I face a decision, and that decision determines whether
05:03 I walk as a pitiful or a powerful Christian that day.
05:07 If I attempt to perfect my walk by the strength of my flesh,
05:12 I am to be pitied as I limp along hobbled by
05:18 self-destructive habits.
05:20 But if I choose to walk in the power of the Spirit,
05:25 I can run the race of faith with joy.
05:31 You know in 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus told Paul, My grace is
05:38 sufficient for you, for My power is made
05:41 perfect in your weakness.
05:43 Now I was receiving much the same message.
05:47 His grace, His divine assistance, His supernatural
05:52 power unto salvation; that's what I needed.
05:56 So I cried out and I said, Father Your word says in
06:00 Psalms 16:11 that You will make known to me the path of life.
06:05 And You will cause me to experience joy in Your presence.
06:10 And then I said, How do I walk as Jesus walked
06:15 in the power of surrender?
06:17 Suddenly this thought came to my mind: If you will to walk
06:23 as Jesus walked, you must follow the path of His passion.
06:29 Now these were the only words that the still small voice
06:32 of the Lord impressed upon me, but it made perfect sense.
06:37 The gateway to salvation is the crucifixion.
06:42 And when we use the word passion, as applied to our
06:45 Savior, it refers to His suffering of the Calvary
06:49 plan on our behalf.
06:51 So what I did was immediately immerse myself in Bible study,
06:57 determined to learn the mystery to walking
07:00 in Christ's footsteps.
07:02 Do you ever weary of the old three steps forward,
07:09 two steps backward routine in your Christian walk?
07:13 You know, the way to overcome this is to learn to walk in the
07:18 power of surrender.
07:20 And it is not that mysterious after all.
07:23 The Spirit's advice was to follow the path
07:26 of Christ's passion.
07:27 And I know Micah 4:2 says that He will show us His ways.
07:32 He said, He will teach us how to walk in His path.
07:38 You know, three great events along the path of Christ's
07:41 passion intrigued my interest, and highlighted symbolic
07:47 significance from my quest to surrender.
07:50 First we must come to that place where we are like Jesus in the
07:55 garden of Gethsemane.
07:56 Secondly, we advance to the point where our actions resemble
08:02 Christ's with respect to the hill of Calvary.
08:05 And finally, we embody and celebrate the power of
08:10 resurrected life as Jesus did the morning He arose
08:15 from the garden tomb.
08:17 Let's look at how these three steps teach surrender,
08:21 and the Scripture promises that we can plant in our hearts
08:25 to be transformed.
08:27 So step one: in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed,
08:34 and this should be our prayer every morning, Luke 22:42.
08:45 The first step of surrender is to pray exactly as Jesus prayed,
08:50 asking for God's will to be done rather than ours.
08:56 When first learning the steps of surrender, I was quite humble
09:00 in my supplications.
09:01 But one day I became a little full of myself,
09:04 and I stepped out ahead of God, and I boldly said, Oh Lord,
09:08 I'm willing to do Your will.
09:10 And suddenly I heard just that still small voice,
09:14 and this thought was impressed upon my mind.
09:18 He said, No, you're not!
09:19 Startled, and momentarily silenced by His words,
09:24 I mulled this thought over in my mind.
09:27 And then I realized, I thought I was willing,
09:30 but I had an important lesson to learn.
09:32 If I were truly willing, I would already be walking
09:35 in perfect obedience to what God had previously taught me,
09:39 which I was not. So I cried out and I said, Oh Father,
09:45 I am willing to be made willing.
09:48 And He responded, That's all I ask of you.
09:52 Philippians 2:13 tells us this:
10:05 You see, we need God's power to even change our will.
10:11 For us to be willing, God first must do a work in our hearts.
10:15 And once that has been achieved, when we step out,
10:19 take that first step of faith, we can know that God will
10:22 infuse us with power to act in a manner pleasing to Him.
10:27 In Psalms 40:8 David prayed, Oh I delight to do Your will,
10:34 Oh my God. Your law is written within my heart.
10:37 And I always pray this when I'm seeking to surrender to God.
10:41 At first it was spoken in a spirit of faith only,
10:46 calling things that did not exist as if they did.
10:50 Because let's be honest, not everything God asks of us to do
10:54 appeals to our natural mind.
10:56 But as I prayed this affirmation, as I prayed God's
11:00 word back to Him, it did not return void.
11:02 He has truly performed a work in my heart
11:05 that makes His will a delight.
11:08 Now Psalms 143:10 is one of my favorites. David prayed:
11:25 This cry of David's is a powerful supplication that we
11:31 can include in our prayer of surrender each morning.
11:34 Just pray that God would teach you His will.
11:38 And then I loved the promise that is found
11:41 in Isaiah 30:20, 21 which says that our teacher will not hide
11:48 Himself, but our eyes will constantly behold our Teacher,
11:52 and our ears will hear a voice behind us saying,
11:56 This is the way, walk in it, when we turn to the left hand,
12:01 or to the right. You see, when we ask God to teach us His will,
12:06 we can count on Him doing just that.
12:10 Pray you will respond to the promptings of your Teacher.
12:15 And then Paul said this in Philippians 2:5-8.
12:23 He said, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
12:27 Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation.
12:32 He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death,
12:38 even the death of the cross.
12:41 We need to pray for the mind of Christ.
12:46 Christ loved sinners, but He loathed sin.
12:51 Sin was an abomination to His holy character.
12:54 We must despise sin and desire to avoid it at all cost.
13:00 There is a cost to doing this.
13:03 To walk in absolute humility like Christ, we must be willing
13:08 to die to self, which takes us to step two,
13:12 which is the hill of Calvary.
13:16 In Luke 9:23 Jesus...
13:30 How often? once a year, or when we're baptized,
13:34 or once a week when we come to church? No. Jesus said:
13:44 Have you ever heard this saying, Oh, we've all got
13:49 our cross to bear.
13:50 Bless her little heart; that no good man of hers is out running
13:54 around again drinking.
13:55 You know, typically when someone says that type of thing,
13:59 Oh, we've all got our cross to bear,
14:01 it describes some kind of earthly burden
14:05 that doesn't seem fair.
14:08 But that's not what Christ referred to when He said,
14:11 Pick up your cross daily.
14:13 In 1 Corinthians 15:31 Paul said, I die daily brothers.
14:18 I mean it. The apostle Paul understood what Jesus meant by
14:22 taking up his cross daily.
14:24 In fact every person to whom Jesus spoke knew that to take
14:28 up the cross meant that you were on your way to be
14:31 crucified unto death.
14:33 The secret of Paul's victorious walk with the Lord
14:37 is that he understood how to die to self daily,
14:41 and how to live for God.
14:44 I warn you in advance, this step is difficult.
14:47 It isn't achieved in an instant.
14:50 We so little understand the principle of dying to self.
14:53 Earthly things excite the lust of the flesh.
14:57 They excite the lust of our eyes, and the pride of life,
15:02 but their pleasures are only passing.
15:04 To be friends with the world, James says,
15:08 is to be enemies of God, and we break our Father's heart.
15:14 We must set our mind on things above,
15:17 not on the things of this earth.
15:19 This requires self-denial at every step
15:23 to walk this victoriously with God.
15:25 Who can do it? You know, Jeremiah 13:23 says, Can an
15:30 Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard change his spots?
15:35 Then may you also do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
15:39 We have no better chance of changing our carnal nature,
15:43 by our human strength, than the sugar ant has of rolling
15:48 a boulder up the hill.
15:50 But don't become discouraged.
15:53 God knows, and He is waiting for us to draw on His power.
15:59 That's His plan. In fact, Romans 8:13...
16:03 Just absolutely love this Scripture.
16:07 Romans 8:13 says:
16:27 Did you notice that Romans 8:13 clearly states, by the Spirit
16:34 working within us, we put to death our misdeeds.
16:38 See, when Jesus said to take up our cross daily,
16:43 He knew we didn't have the power to crucify our own flesh nature.
16:48 He knew we needed a coexecutioner.
16:51 We need the Holy Spirit.
16:53 It's a joint operation.
16:56 We must cooperate, cooperate with the Spirit of God,
17:01 counting on His power.
17:03 Our heart cry should be, Oh Lord, help me pick
17:06 up my cross today.
17:08 Help me die to self.
17:09 Case me, by the power of Your Spirit to put to death
17:12 the misdeeds of my flesh.
17:14 You now, Paul said in Galatians 5:24, 25, Those who are Christ's
17:22 have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
17:26 And if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
17:33 Paul knew the only way that we can keep in step with the Spirit
17:39 is if our flesh has been crucified.
17:41 Only then will we not lag behind Him, or run ahead of Him.
17:47 He also said in Galatians 2:20, he said, I have been
17:52 crucified with Christ.
17:54 It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
17:58 And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith
18:03 in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me.
18:08 When Christ lives in us, we enjoy abundant life on earth,
18:14 and then we receive an inheritance that won't
18:18 fade away in eternity.
18:20 Now that's a life well spent!
18:23 And, finally, in Galatians 6:14 Paul said, God forbid that I
18:28 should boast except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ,
18:34 by whom the world has been crucified to me
18:37 and I to the world.
18:39 Do we find our boast in the Lord's salvation?
18:44 Is the world crucified to us, or do we still respond
18:49 to its siren song?
18:50 What profit is there Jesus said, if we gained the whole
18:54 world and lose our own soul?
18:56 Paul declared to fellow believers in Colossians 3:3,
19:00 He said, for you have died, and your life is hidden
19:04 with Christ in God.
19:06 Christians are to be dead to self,
19:09 dead to the lure of the world, and its decaying force.
19:13 Our true life is in Christ.
19:16 We are secure in His love.
19:19 And because He lives, we will live also.
19:23 The angel's message to the woman at the tomb was this:
19:29 Do not be alarmed.
19:31 You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.
19:37 He's not here. He is risen.
19:39 And that's what I'm telling you today.
19:42 Don't be alarmed at the thought of dying to self.
19:45 Christ didn't stay in the tomb.
19:48 He's alive and so, too, will you be.
19:51 More alive than ever!
19:53 Don't be afraid of dying to self, because there's a
19:58 better life to be enjoyed.
20:01 As Paul proclaimed in Philippians 3:10, He said,
20:04 It is once we are conformed to Christ's death that we can
20:09 finally know the power of His resurrection.
20:13 Which leads us to our third step of this surrender process.
20:17 And that is to arise with resurrection power.
20:22 How do we do that?
20:24 Well, Jesus gives us the answer in Luke 11:9-13. Jesus says:
20:54 You see, these verbs: ask, seek, and knock, here in verse 9,
21:01 they're linear verbs in the Greek language.
21:04 This means that they are a continuous action.
21:06 We are to ask and keep on asking,
21:09 to seek and keep on seeking, to knock and keep on knocking,
21:14 not because we're begging the Lord,
21:17 but as a result of our constant need.
21:20 How do we receive resurrected life after we have died daily?
21:26 It is the Spirit who gives life.
21:30 We ask for the Holy Spirit daily.
21:34 We earnestly seek the Lord to pour out His Spirit on us.
21:40 We knock on the door of heaven, in acknowledgment of how much
21:47 we need the Spirit.
21:49 Ephesians 5:18 commands us, and in the Greek it's very
21:55 obvious this is a continuous action.
21:57 It's saying, ever be filled, ever be stimulated
22:02 by the Holy Spirit.
22:04 Like I said, in the Greek this verb, to be filled,
22:10 means it's a continuous action.
22:13 It's a continuous filling that we need.
22:17 We need to be baptized, to be immersed in His Spirit daily.
22:24 It is the Spirit's power that causes us to bear the fruit
22:30 of love, joy, and peace within our hearts, and to develop
22:36 the patience, kindness, and goodness toward mankind,
22:41 and to express faithfulness, humility, and self-control
22:46 in our walk with the Lord.
22:48 That's the fruit of the Spirit.
22:50 Scripture tells us, it's actually Romans 5:5,
22:56 that God pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
23:02 And only those who are led by the Spirit are God's children.
23:09 The Spirit is our teacher.
23:12 Without Him we cannot understand the things of God.
23:18 It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that God works in us
23:24 to will and to act according to His good purposes.
23:27 And it is by the Spirit that we are sealed
23:32 for the day of redemption.
23:33 Without His power at work within our lives, we are nothing more
23:39 than sugar ant substitutes for Christians.
23:42 Our hour of triumph will come when we understand that we
23:49 cannot save ourselves, recognizing that the glory
23:54 of our salvation belongs to God.
23:57 You know, Acts 5:32 tells us that the Spirit of God is given
24:05 to those who obey Him.
24:08 Only one man ever walked this earth who was given the fullness
24:12 of the Spirit without measure, and that was Christ Jesus,
24:16 who walked in perfect obedience.
24:19 The more we obey, the more we are emptied of self, and the
24:23 greater the measure of His Spirit that will be given to us.
24:27 Our responsibility is simply to surrender to God,
24:31 to open up our hearts and let the King of glory come in.
24:36 This is the most important supplication that you and I
24:42 can make in our daily prayers.
24:44 Each morning when we get up we should make earnest
24:49 supplication for the Holy Spirit as our source of power
24:53 to walk in. We should pray to walk in the power of surrender,
25:00 to run with endurance, to be a light bearer to the world.
25:05 We need to seek God early.
25:08 This is absolutely the greatest pursuit of day.
25:13 Please hear me! Praying for the Holy Spirit morning by morning,
25:18 is the greatest pursuit of the day.
25:20 The cause of God is crippled in our lives when we lack
25:24 passionate, personal prayer, and knowledge of His promises.
25:28 We need to pray for an unquenchable desire to read
25:33 God's inexhaustible word.
25:36 We need to cry out to be sanctified by His word.
25:41 It is by the word of God and the Holy Spirit, that we develop
25:47 and intimate oneness with God.
25:50 Contemplation of His love for us should awaken our awe.
25:56 We cry out, Abba Father, and with faith we believe that
26:02 He will hear our supplications, and that He will maintain
26:08 our cause as each day may require.
26:12 Faith in His faithfulness is essential to prayer.
26:18 You know, supplication is a time of presenting our personal
26:28 requests before God.
26:30 We've had praise, repentance, affirmation, intercession when
26:35 we're praying for others, and now supplication.
26:39 We don't know how to pray as we should, but when we come to God
26:48 and with an earnest heart, the Holy Spirit will come to our
26:53 aid, and He will teach us how to pray.
26:58 Having pressed in this manner into His presence,
27:03 and supplication, going before the King of kings, now God is
27:11 ready to hold out His scepter of love, and He bids us,
27:16 Come a little closer.
27:18 And as we hear His command, and this is His command,
27:23 Be still and know that I am God.
27:27 Now we are prepared to stand in His presence.
27:34 I hope that you will join us next time as we begin
27:38 considering how the Bible says God speaks to His people.
27:44 We're going to identify ten different categories,
27:48 ten different manners in which God speaks to His people.
27:53 And now that we've pressed in this far into His presence,
27:57 we're ready to step into the Holy of Holies.
28:01 Our prayer for you today is that the grace of our Lord and
28:04 Savior Jesus Christ, the love of the Father,
28:07 and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit will be with you always.


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Revised 2015-01-29