The last person to be rescued from the Twin Towers of the 9/11 tragedy was Genelle McMillan. She had been trapped in the rubble for 27 hours when she was finally rescued by fire fighters. Genelle had worked on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center but when the planes hit she was encased alive in between slabs of concrete. Although Genelle had been raised in church, she had fallen away from God. In the darkness of the rubble, her thoughts once again turned to God and she began to pray. She prayed, “God, please save my life. Give me a second chance. I promise, I will change my life and do your will.” She prayed that prayer of surrender over and over until she was finally rescued.
When we’re in trouble over our heads, when our lives hang in the balance, we know that we need to surrender our lives to God. How much better to live a lifestyle of surrender to God. Today my message topic is entitled “Surrendering To God.” Surrendering your life to God is an act of worship. In fact, worship is really about surrendering the throne of your life to God.
Every person begins with self firmly seated on the throne of their lives. God asks each person to step down from the throne of their lives and surrender that throne to their creator. TEV Romans 6:13 Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes. When you or I are on the throne of our lives, we have surrendered to sin and the enemy uses us for wicked purposes. The middle letter of sin is I and the essence of sin is self being on the throne. However, when you surrender to God, when you allow Him to be enthroned in your life, God can then use you for righteous purposes. That is how you were created to live. You were created to live a life surrendered to God and His purposes.
Today I’m going to talk about some of the barriers we have to surrendering our lives to God and about the benefits of surrendering the throne of your life to God.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my March 5, 2006 message entitled Surrendering To God
Pastor Dan,
This was a very useful post for me. I have grappled with control and surrender for years. I also was in the subway when the towers were going down wondering if I was going to die. I didn’t pray; that wasn’t part of my life then.
You’ve clarified many things for me with your blog post. However, and this is not an attempt to dertail your message but it is something people think about and I think it needs to be addressed. There were people who prayed when 911 came and didn’t live. How does that fit in? I know faith is the basis of all connection to God so I can see that as an answer but I am curious how to reconcile this seeming contradiction.
Thanks for listening.
Neil