Devotional from Pastor Tim

The word surrender can carry heavy baggage. For many, it sounds like defeat, loss, or being forced to give up to an opponent. In everyday language, surrender happens when someone has been overpowered.

But our relationship with God is nothing like that.

God is not your opponent. He is your Savior. He is not trying to defeat you; He has already rescued you. In Christ, the victory is settled. The cross was not God overpowering you, it was God overcoming everything that stood against you. That is overwhelming!

When Christians use the word surrender, what is often meant is something far more beautiful: trusting God, yielding to His wisdom, presenting ourselves to Him, resting in His care. And that posture is not rooted in fear, obligation, or defeat. It is rooted in freedom, security, and victory.

God does not wait for you to give something up before He moves. Grace moved first. God acted first. Love initiated first.

“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

Any response we offer Him flows from what we have already received.

Much of our exhaustion in life comes from trying to control outcomes we were never designed to carry. We try to manage perceptions, secure the future, fix people, and hold everything together. But control is a weight too heavy for the human soul.

Trust, on the other hand, brings rest. Trusting God does not suppress you, it expresses you. You are not losing yourself when you rest in Him. You are discovering who you already are: a beloved child, secure in Christ, led by grace—not fear.

You are not waving a white flag in surrender; you are opening your hands to a faithful Father. You are not giving in to an opponent. You are leaning into the One who is for you.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28