The Dimensions of Surrender

The Making of A Witness

Dear #DailyFollower,

Introduction

I trust you’re having a relaxing weekend and enjoying one last weekend in January 2025.

It’s been a fairly busy one for me, but I’ve also experienced grace and strength from God in more incredible dimensions than I’ve experienced before in my journey with God. While physically tired, I’m excited to be here again, sharing my thoughts with you.

My contemplations for today came during my prayer walk earlier in the day, where I asked God for practical ways to worship in Truth and Spirit and for what was on His mind.

Surrender was one of the responses I received in my spirit, and I thought of sharing what I learned from God’s Spirit with someone who is receiving a call from God to come up higher in their walk with Him.

In this letter, I will start by laying out some contexts; then, I’ll share the dimensions of surrender (as I received from the Holy Spirit) and close out with an encouragement to all followers to evaluate their current level of surrender and press for more surrender.

Some Necessary Context

To put the response I received from God’s Spirit into some context, Christ gave His life for us in the highest form of surrender. Paul said we should yield ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12:1, EXB).

When we check the dictionary meaning of sacrifice, a few things jump out:

1. giving up life as an offering

2. giving up something valued for something considered more important or worthy.

In simple terms, surrender is giving up something or someone as an offering or in exchange for something.

With this context laid out, I’ll share what I received from God’s Spirit about the dimensions of surrender He expects from me as a daily follower and what He expects from all daily followers.

NOTE:
The Scriptures encourage us to test all spirits, and I do that in all my prayer conversations with God. Any thought that comes into my mind in prayer is validated across different planes.

One such plane is the doctrine test that Apostle Joshua Selman once shared. This test evaluates thoughts to identify if they are from God’s Spirit.

The doctrine test says a doctrine can only be considered scriptural if we find instances where the principles of the doctrine show up in:

1. The Old Testament stories,

2. The Life and Ministry of Jesus, and

3. The Move of God’s Spirit in the Early Church.

All three must be valid for it to be a doctrine, and for my evaluation of thoughts, all three must be valid for a thought imposed on my heart to be from God’s Spirit.

I lay this context because what I share in the next session is not something I’ve heard anywhere. I also know it’s not new, as it is all based on the Scriptures; I’ve only come into this body of truth by the Spirit in my contemplations today.

However, it’s interesting that I can pinpoint specific times in my journey with God now when I entered into each dimension of surrender. It’s just amazing to me that in God, we can enter into things that we only later fully grasp the complete picture as God sees it.

Now, what are the dimensions of surrender?

Dimension #1: Simple Surrender

This dimension is about believing and becoming.

When we surrendered our lives to Jesus and became a part of His family, we engaged in the first layer of surrendering.

According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, EXB, we gave up our old lives for new lives in Christ.

This dimension of surrender is required to begin the journey into the daily following; without it, we cannot say we’ve surrendered to God, and we can’t access the other dimensions of surrender.

In the Old Testament, Abraham responded to a call of God to leave the familiar to the unfamiliar with Him, and Abraham did just that (Genesis 12:1-4, EXB)!

In the Life and Ministry of Jesus, He gave up His heavenly state as God to become human, dwell with humans, feel what humans feel, and give up His life for humans (Philippians 2:5-8, AMPC).

In the early church, Paul gave up his highly coveted place as a Pharisee to become a follower of Jesus after his encounter with our risen Saviour (Acts 9:1-19, EXB).

Believing in God and taking Him at His word enabled becoming in each of these instances.

For Abraham, he believed God, and He became the father of many nations and the one through whom God would send His only begotten Son into the world.

For Christ, He believed in His Father’s plan for the redemption of all creation, and He became the sacrificial lamb that bought all creation’s redemption from sin.

In Paul’s case, he believed in the risen Christ, and He became a part of God’s family and a messenger of Jesus to the Gentiles.

In late November 2001, I also believed in and accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour (finally, after several false surrenders), and I became a part of God’s family.

I want to believe every daily follower reading this has already engaged the first dimension of surrender, and if you haven’t fully engaged, pray Romans 10:9-10, EXB to engage this first dimension of surrender.

Dimension #2: Dangerous Surrender

This dimension is about submitting and belonging. This dimension is only possible after simple surrender.

We surrender our will and ways to God and entirely give ourselves to belonging to Him. In this dimension, our will and ways aren’t the driving factors in our lives; His will and ways inform our conduct and decisions.

As the redeemed, we know that the Lord is God. He made us for His glory, so we belong to Him, as the Psalmist eloquently states in Psalm 100:3, EXB.

Daily Followers of Jesus move from being members of God’s family to belonging to God as vessels He can use to reveal His glory to the world. Our remaining as followers depends on our submitting to God’s will and ways.

In the Old Testament, Moses eventually submitted his will and ways (his attempts to become the deliverer of God’s people by becoming an avenger for wrongs done to His people, which only made him a murderer, not a deliverer, Exodus 2:11-14, GW) to God's will and way—delivering Israel by His mighty power (Deuteronomy 26:7-9, AMPC).

In the Life and Ministry of Jesus, Christ submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit to go on a 40-day retreat that would prepare Him for the history-transforming ministry ahead of Him after His baptism, even when this leading would come with tests (Matthew 4:1-11, NLT).

In the early church, 120 of the 500 disciples who witnessed the ascension submitted to Christ’s instruction for them to tarry in Jerusalem for the in-filling of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49, KJV), and all who tarried were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4, EXB).

Submitting to God’s will and ways enables us to belong to Him wholly, losing our ability to choose our will or way over He’s, as His will and ways guide us daily.

Moses submitted to God’s will and way; thereby, he belonged to God, and with God speaking through him, Israel left Egypt and journeyed towards Canaan, experiencing the mighty works of God.

Christ, in human form, gave Himself to His Father, and by belonging to God, the world around Him experienced the wonders of His Father.

We have the gospel's message today because of the 120 disciples who chose to submit and wholly belong to God, who then used them to transform the known world of their time - laying the foundation of the Church of Jesus as we know it today.

In 2019, I also chose the path of dangerous surrender. I gave up my right to choose my will and way to belong wholly to my God, allowing Him to guide my steps.

Dimension #3: Fatal Surrender

I had to hear that again as the Spirit ministered to my heart.

Yes, He said fatal surrender. It is the kind Paul described in Philippians 1:21, AMPC:

²¹ For me to live is Christ [His life in me], and to die is gain [the gain of the glory of eternity].

In this dimension of surrender, it is about complete surrender and partnership.

We live to fulfil God’s good pleasures, and we are happy to sacrifice our lives, even choosing physical death if it would bring glory to God.

In the Old Testament, Abraham goes the entire way with His commitment to sacrifice Isaac - the child he waited many years for in obedience to God (Genesis 22:1-14, NLT). That’s a demonstration of fatal surrender.

Christ demonstrated fatal surrender by giving up His life for you and me at the end of His earthly ministry, even when His human form fought with the thought of going through with the sacrifice (Luke 22:41-43, AMPC).

Stephen demonstrated fatal surrender, giving up His life for the message of Jesus as the first martyr of the early church (Acts 7:57-60, EXB).

Complete surrender to God enables us to partner with Him in what He’s doing and blessing in our world.

Abraham’s complete surrender to God enabled his partnership with God to raise a generation through which God continues to bless creation.

Christ’s complete surrender to God enabled His partnership with God to fulfil God’s redemptive purpose for creation.

Stephen’s complete surrender to God enabled his partnership with God to reveal God’s gift (eternal glory) to all who choose to give up their all for Him.

Last year, I finally chose a path of fatal surrender, giving up everything I’d previously held back from God and committing to living or dying for the revelation of His glory.

Key Takeaway

1. The dimension of God that we see in our lives is a direct product of the level of our surrender to God.

2. God call us all to complete surrender, but He’s happy to work with us through the different dimensions at our pace.

3. All who surrender (at any level) to God will see God, but the rewards we receive from Him will vary and depend on the dimensions of surrender we engage.

Conclusion

God calls us to come up higher; even after we choose the path of fatal surrender, He demands more surrender each day.

“In Him, we live, in Him, we move, in Him we have our being” is the mantra of all who daily choose the path of complete surrender.

I pray we all receive the grace we need to deepen our levels of surrender because when we do, we see more of God.

Yours faithfully,
John, a #DailyFollower.

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