THE LIFE YIELDED — HOW?

Perhaps some reader has been brought to say, Lord, I will yield to Thee. I see why I should yield, and what but now tell me how. Because salvation from beginning to end is through God’s pure grace, He always takes the initiative in bringing us into a fuller experience of our inheritance in Christ. So the Lord Jesus stands outside every un-yielded part of your life and knocks and waits for your response. He wishes to come in and fellowship with you in every part of your spiritual life but in between the knocking and the entering something must take place, for Christ never forces entrance. If He enters, the door must be opened.

Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Yielding to Christ is a definite act. It is not a mere expression of a pious desire but it is the declaration of a purposeful determination. It is not an often-repeated wish but it is a decisive act of the will. To yield is to acknowledge Christ’s claim to the perfect possession, complete control and unhindered use of one’s whole being and then to act upon such an acknowledgment by a definite surrender of it to Him. Desire becomes decision and decision crystallizes into action.

In A Memorial of a True Life by Dr. R. E. Speer is recorded such a definite act of surrender by Hugh Beaver, a young man of rare spirituality whose life was very marvelously used among college students in a few brief years of service before God called him Home.

“Kutztown, Pa., Nov. 16, 1895.

This 16th day of November 1895, I, Hugh Beaver, do of my own free will give myself, all that I am and have, entirely, unreservedly, unqualifiedly to Him, whom having not seen I love, on whom, though now I see Him not, I believe. Bought with a price, I give myself to Him who at the cost of His own blood purchased me. Now committing myself to Him who is able to guard me from stumbling and to set me before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy, I trust myself to Him for all things, to be used as He shall see fit where He shall see fit. Sealed by the Holy Spirit, filled with the peace of God that passeth understanding, to Him be all glory, world without end. Amen. Phil. 4:19. HUGH BEAVER.”

Have you by such a definite decisive act of the will yielded yourself, all that you are, and all that you have, to the Lord Jesus? If not, will you not close this book for a moment and do it now?

Yielding to Christ is a voluntary act. We do not yield because we have to but because we want to. It is not a matter of coercion but of consecration. The Lord Jesus stands outside the door of that un-yielded portion of your life and knocks but He will not force an entrance. It would mean very little indeed to be allowed to enter if He did not find fellowship and comradeship with the one within. It is love that desires to enter but unless love is met by love the entrance would bring heartache rather than joy. “What fragrance is to the rose, colour to the sunset sky, spotlessness to the falling snow, voluntariness is to the surrender of the life.” Of His own free will he joyously, gladly laid down His life for us. With a smile and a song He wants us to open the door to Him.

Yielding to Christ is a final act. Such a yielding of the life as-we have been considering is irreversible; it need not be repeated. If it has been done honestly it is for time and eternity. Great perplexity of heart has come to countless souls over this matter of repeated surrender so let us be clear as to what has been done and then we shall see how irrevocable the act has been.

Through yielding to Christ we have acknowledged that we are not our own and we have transferred the ownership of our life from self to Christ. Henceforth the life is no longer ours. A resurrender implies that the transfer had not been honestly made.

Of course one does not know all that is involved in this initial act of surrender or all that it will require of one. When you begin to live only and wholly for God there will be constant revelations of portions of the life still virtually held by self as its own possession. The heart will be made conscious of unwillingness to relinquish certain rights and privileges so long enjoyed. What, then, must one do as these revelations come? Does one need to make a surrender of the life over again? No, that was done once and for all. Simply say, “Lord, this thing which I am still claiming and holding as my own was part of that whole which I yielded to Thee. It, too, belonged in that initial surrender. I thank Thee for Thy faithfulness in showing me that it is un-yielded and just now I give it into Thy possession and place it under Thy control.”

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Part 1 of 2, Grace Notes, March 22, 2007

by Ruth Paxson. Life on the Highest Plane, Volume 3, from Chapter 3, Moody Bible Institute 1928. http://www.goodnews.org.au/life/truthfl-27.html