Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?” 

Matthew 16:24-26 HCSB

Victory and surrender in our world are not synonymous terms. Either you win the fight or you surrender. But a lot of what God’s word instructs us to do is opposite from the world, have you ever noticed that? Our scripture passage today is certainly no exception. In our scripture passage, Jesus tells His disciples that they must lose their lives to save their lives. In other words in order for us to live victorious lives, we must surrender to Him.

Another example of this reverse thinking is the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells them that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle, the merciful, and the peacemakers will be blessed. Now in all honesty, those are words that we associate with weakness. Poor in spirit, mourning, gentle, meek, merciful and forgiving, and peacemakers all sound like doormats, right? But I submit to you that you must be strong in order to be all these things. You must be strong to surrender yourself and submit yourself to Christ and do the things He commands us to do. It’s not for the weak, my friend. Anyone can be angry, bitter and hostile. You must be strong in Christ to be humble, forgiving and a peacemaker.

You see, we must understand that our strength comes from the Lord. Isaiah 40:29 tells us that He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Philippians 4:13 tells us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Now you can work out daily, you can take supplements, steroids, whatever to get physical strength, but my friend if you don’t surrender to God you will be spiritually weak. When we are spiritually weak, we can have all the physical strength in the world, but it doesn’t help us. Our scripture passage says how will it help us to gain the world and lose our soul? We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16, that we can overcome or conquer the world for He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. Romans 8:37 tells us that we are not only victorious, but we are more than victorious through Christ who loves us.

With God on our side we can’t lose. God never fails, God never loses. Romans 8:31 tells us that if God is for us, who can be against us? So my question to you today is do you want true victory? In order for us to have victory and be more than victorious through Christ, we must surrender to Him. We must give it all over to Him. We must turn our sin over to Him, we must turn our heartache over to Him, we must surrender completely to Him. We have to learn to let go and let God handle it. Then, and only then, will we taste the sweet taste of victory through Him.

Trust in Him today, don’t rely on your own wisdom or your own strength (Proverbs 3:5-6). Doing that just gets us into trouble. Surrender to Him today and overcome the agony of defeat. Be more than victorious!

Have a great day!