Surrender-ing

Can I say that I love Experience Life more than anywhere I have ever been? It is not that any of the churches I have gone to our bad, it's just I absolutely LOVE EL! But this weekend Chris started "Confessions of a Pastor". This series he will be uncovering some of his struggles in sinning to the world! I think this is so amazing. How often do we see the Pastors of our churches as "perfect, flawless, sinless, shameless"??? I know that sometimes it has been extremely hard for me to relate to some of the messages I have heard from pastors because I feel they have no experience in that particular subject matter. I have often caught myself pondering the question of "do they really sin?". Well that is what is amazing about the Confessions of a Pastor series! Chris is becoming transparent to anyone and everyone and therefore I think it will make him more human-like and more relate able to the fellow sinners in the congregation! Love it!

Anyways- this past weekend he gave us an Easter challenge of "Surrender". That we need to surrender everything we got, and our struggles to him! So as we walked into the service we were handed a nail, and I thought it was going to be one of those cheesy things you just walk away with, and probably use to hang a picture around the house. But no, when we sat down their were index cards. After Chris shared the sermon, each pastor of the the church got up, shared with EVERYONE their personal struggles/sins, and then nailed them to the cross... So we were challenged to write on the index card some of the things that we need to surrender to Jesus and then use the nail we got when we walked in and nail it to the cross! Can I just say how emotional this was for me! It brought some heavy duty tears to my eyes! I have never felt so close to the Lord when it came to me surrendering! I guess in a way you could say I totally re-dedicated myself to the Lord! I surrendered, and I am surrendering to him daily! I nailed those struggles to the cross just as my precious Savior was nailed for those struggles to a wooden cross!

I will never forget that day... April 12, 2009! It will forever be etched in my mind as the day I fully surrendered to Christ and made it real! Not that I didn't give my heart to the Lord when I was 8, but this time, I will walk away changed and I have!

I challenge you to surrender!

Like the old hymn says "All to Jesus, I surrender, All to thee I freely give..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, I am sharing a song that our church sings, and right now, it is on every breath I take... watch it by clicking

HERE

Really, listen to it and read the lyrics as it goes along...