What does it mean to surrender to Christ?
The word “surrender” means “to yield, to submit to one’s authority.” So, to surrender to Christ means to yield our lives to Him and to submit to His authority by obeying whatever He commands us. Though the expression “surrender to Christ” is not found in Scripture, the fact that we should is taught throughout the Bible. Let’s look at several scriptures that teach us that we should indeed “surrender to Christ.”
We need to make one point clear as we proceed; it is only believers in Christ who can surrender to Christ. Sometimes an appeal is made to lost sinners to “give your heart or life to Christ,” but until one is born again there is neither the desire nor the power to give our hearts or lives to Christ. A verse that is often used in this appeal is Proverbs 23:26 which says, “My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.” Notice the appeal here is to “My son”: for God is appealing to those who have been born again to yield their hearts to Him and to observe His ways.
There are two more portions we will briefly consider. The first one is Romans 6:12-13; it reads “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Before we are saved we were slaves to sin and thus sin reigned over us. After we are saved we no longer need to obey the sinful desires that once enslaved us, for we now have the desire to please God. In order to do that we are told to “yield yourselves to God.” This is another way of saying, “surrender to Christ.” We are to yield every member of our body to Him for His honor and glory. He has redeemed us and now He wants us to turn our bodies over to Him so He can use them “as instruments of righteousness.” Paul speaks of this same truth in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (NASB).
The second passage is Romans 12:1 which reads, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The words “present your bodies a living sacrifice” are yet another way of saying, “surrender to Christ.” Like the passage we just considered, this verse also speaks of YIELDING OUR BODIES TO GOD. But here we learn what it is that will motivate us to make this total commitment to God; it is “the mercies of God” that compel the believer to surrender his heart and life to Christ. Those “mercies” are spoken of in previous chapters, mercies such as justification, forgiveness, salvation, divine election, no condemnation, and no separation (from the love of God). I would encourage you to study chapters 1-8 to find these blessings that God’s mercy has provided for us. As we muse on God’s mercies towards us and allow the Spirit to make them real and precious to us, we will indeed realize that “surrendering to Christ” is our “reasonable [i.e. intelligent] service.” For if Christ died to procure all these blessings for us, the least we can do is yield our lives to Him for His honor and glory. (175.7) (DO)