Yield - Give it to God!

Today’s blog is a short excerpt from my book Road Signs for Living. As an independent personality, I do not easily yield. I know that I cannot possibly be the only one who has struggled, at one time or another, with the process of giving my life totally to God. I hope today’s few words remind you, as they do me, that it is the only way to live a life of “righteousness leading to holiness”.

“I put this in human terms because you

are weak in your natural selves. Just as

you used to offer the parts of your body

in slavery to impurity and to ever-

increasing wickedness, so now offer

them in slavery to righteousness leading

to holiness.”             Romans 6:19 NIV

 

     For over forty years the prophet Jeremiah yielded himself to God and his call to preach repentance to the people of God. It was a process Jeremiah repeated over and over again during those forty years.

     Like Jeremiah, we must discover the importance of obedience to God and his call on our lives. We find safety, security and an awareness of God’s presence in our lives when we yield our will to His—even or perhaps especially, during the bad times.

     What is the purpose of the yield sign?  Some people feel it is a take your chances sign. They glance for oncoming traffic and then dart quickly out onto the road in order to get ahead of everyone else. Some think it is meant for others who are supposed to get out of the way. Others bring their vehicles to a complete stop. Then there is the person that sees a yield sign, slows, looks in all directions, judges whether or not it is safe to continue and drives happily on— thus fulfilling the intended purpose of that road sign which reads YIELD.

     Like yielding to oncoming traffic, yielding to God calls for our total surrender. However, when we yield ourselves completely, God is able to produce righteousness in our lives. Just as we face consequences on the highway when we do not yield, we also face consequences when we refuse to yield our lives to the LORD God Jehovah under the direction of His Holy Spirit.

     In Romans 6:19, the Apostle Paul tells us that freedom from the grasp of sin comes when we yield to the righteousness of God. Paul spoke about being a slave to righteousness; doing what is right according to God’s standards and not ours. When Christ yielded Himself to His Father in death, He glorified God. In His resurrection, He also glorified God. As a child of God, our life should reflect the glory of God because we are alive unto God through His Son Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit dwells in us. We are dead to sin in Christ, and we have the power to conquer sin in our lives by the grace of God.

     When we yield our life to Him, we allow God’s grace to flow through us as we become an instrument that brings glory to God. In Christ, we have the ability to become purposefully yielded to right living—acknowledging God’s will in our lives.

     To yield our lives is not a concept heralded by the media in our “politically correct” charged world. Rather, we see daily updates on our rights as citizens, our rights as employees, our rights as women… We will yield to one thing or another—to captivity of sin leading to bondage like those to whom Jeremiah preached or to righteousness leading to holiness like the prophet Jeremiah. We must each decide.

    

©JPowell-2013