Come Out With Your Hands Up

“Surrender yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  James 4:7

One of the greatest discrepancies that we find in the life of the professed followers of The Lord God Jesus Christ is between what The One True Living God requires of us according to His Holy Word (The Holy Scriptures) and what we are willing to do in our response to the accomplishments of Christ on the Cross.  This discrepancy can be summed up in one word – Surrender.

The Bible tells us plainly in the above scripture that it is God’s desire that we submit or surrender to God.  As we live a surrendered life to God we operate in humility and are guaranteed the spiritual prosperity that Christ has planned.  Yet too often we find professed Christians saying by their actions “I’m not doing what God’s word said.”  Their behavior tells God that they believe there is a better way than His way.

The idea of surrender takes me back to when I was a boy and watched westerns with my father.  Quite often the “bad guys” would find themselves surrounded by the “good guys” and the sheriff would shout “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP”.  If the bad guys were smart they would come to the realization of their situation and comply.  But of course, to many times, they would allow pride to get in the way only to die as they made their final “run for it”.

Today The Lord God Jesus Christ is saying to all humanity, particularly the United States, and specifically the Church America “Come Out With Your Hands Up”.  He is calling us to surrender all that we do to God and His perfect will and way.

We have a choice to make: To surrender to God and the Biblical worldview or to submit to the world, the flesh, and that which is evil.  These are the only two choices.  It is either Jesus God, His word, plan and way, or it is anything and everything else.  We all will choose.

If we are going to truly surrender to God we must realize the following:

1. I am surrounded.  God’s word is all around me speaking to my situation declaring both who I am and what I have done.  The truth is that I am guilty of everything that God says that I am guilty of.  As a result, I am surrounded by the realization of all my spiritual failures, my rejection of Christ and His divine will for my life.  And I am surrounded by the power of God The Holy Spirit.  The verdict and punishment has already been pronounced.  I am not escaping.
2. I must stop fighting God.  I must remove all resistance to God’s will from my will.  I am foolishly trying to overcome that which cannot be resisted.  I must put my life in God’s hands and trust Him for the outcome, no matter how uncomfortable that is for me right now.  I must stop trying to live my life any way other than the Bible way.
3. I have to throw my weapons down and come out with my hands up as an outward sign that there is no more inward resistance.  I come to Jesus God in repentance of my many sins.  I completely surrender all that I am and all that I have to God that I might live a life that fully honors Him.

We have not fully surrendered to Jesus God if we are living a life of sexual immorality or rebel against God’s word.  We are spiritually out of order when we support those who support the murder of innocent children or those who seek to sexualize and pervert our children or those who stand with what God has called an abomination.  A true follower of Jesus Christ is not concerned with political ideology, family traditions, or denominational theology.  An authentic follower of The Lord God Jesus Christ is simply concerned with one thing.  And that is understanding what God said, what God meant by what He said, and being completely obedient to that which honors Christ the most.  Everything else is dung.

We have a choice to make.  Come out with your hands up.