But, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not
already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a
man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day
of the only offering he cares for――ourselves as living sacrifices. We
are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are
not our own, we belong to him. Have _you_ acknowledged this ownership
in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its
every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory
will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An
earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distress because there
was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but
she could not give it up.
“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.
“Christ.”
“What price did he pay for you?”
“His own life.”
“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back.
What are you doing?”
“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.
“Yes, you are robbing him.”
But the struggle went on and she would not yield.
“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him,
and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”
She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord
that she _would_ yield that one thing she was holding back, and that
there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.
She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed
that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from
doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would
not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the
mission field. God _may not want him to go_, but he can never have
Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what God _may_ want
him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.