To give yourself fully to Christ. This is the task for the Christian. We hear it from teachers, we read it in the Scripture, and we say it to each other, but what does this mean? And while we throw this phrase around with a sort of recklessness, it is but an indistinct clang of a cymbal if we do not stop to answer the basic questions: what does this mean and how do I do it?
What does this mean?
To give yourself fully to Christ is a daily moment-by-moment submission of will, talent, ambition, goal, resource, relationship, and everything else imaginable to God. A complete surrender. The funny thing is that there is really no such thing as a half-way surrender. If you don't give it all, you haven't really given any of it. But the thing about it is, there are stages to this submission. I mean to say that what you have offered as a sacrifice of submission today is predicated upon what you have been blessed to submit yesterday; it may not happen all at once. Fortunately, God works like that!
How do I do it?
This one is simple: practice, practice, practice. But what do I practice, you might ask. For fear of writing too much I will say this. We are called to practice godliness. Quite literally, this means that we will imitate Christ. From a practical standpoint, this means that we will love God with every pore of our beings, that we will make prayer and Bible study a vital part fo our daily lives, and we will love people fiercely. But again, God has given us a Helper in the Holy Spirit, who guides us and strengthens us for this task of daily devotion.
Hopefully, now when you hear/read someone say that we ought to give ourselves fully to Christ, you would be better equipped to raise your hand in exuberance and cry out: "Amen!"
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