I Surrender All

“I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed savior, I surrender all.”  —Judson W. Van DeVenter

The wonderful hymn, “I Surrender All,” is an excellent example of a song which was written as a personal commitment to the Lordship of Christ. Written by Judson Van DeVenter in 1896 during a time when he was struggling with a vocational decision, the song led him to make the decision to surrender to the Lordship of Christ.

Judson had deeply struggled between developing his talents in the field of teaching and art versus going into a full-time evangelistic ministry. He didn’t feel ready or fully equipped for ministry, but the battle inside himself continued until the day he finally decided to surrender all to Jesus. He left his ambition and rising talent in the field of arts and as a teacher to focus instead on the high calling of becoming an evangelist. When he made the decision, he discovered deep down in his soul a talent he had never known was there. He believed the song “I Surrender All” was hidden in his heart until the day he decided to surrender all to follow Christ’s leading. He summarized the experience this way: “God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, he caused me to sing.”

All disciples of Jesus are called to surrender in the same way—to be willing to take up our own cross (Luke 14:27). The apostle Paul had a “surrender all” experience. Paul’s surrender to Christ was dramatic. Having been the chief persecutor of Christ’s followers, Paul surrendered to Christ beginning with an encounter on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). That act led to a lifetime of surrender in which he gave up everything in order to live for Christ. He summarized it this way: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

The idea of surrender is to choose not to resist but to submit to authority instead. We think of surrender most readily in military terms, but surrender is also experienced personally. The most consequential act of surrender in history happened when Jesus chose not to resist His Father’s will for Him to die on a cross: “…nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

If you are a disciple of Christ, contemplate the degree of your surrender to Him and any resistance you feel. I have observed that one of the hardest areas for most Christians to “surrender all” is in the area of finance. We give lip service to the truth that “God owns it all,” but, in reality, we cling tightly to the wealth, resources, property, or business interests that He entrusts to us as though they are ours to possess.

“Surrender all,” living requires that nothing is off-limits. God is calling you to “surrender all” in the area of finances. Randy Alcorn, in his book Managing God’s Money, makes this provocative statement: “If anything we have is off-limits to God, if it’s not subject to prayerful dialogue, then let’s be honest about it—we aren’t stewards, we’re embezzlers. We aren’t serving God; we’re playing God.”

I believe, without equivocation, that all of our possessions and assets are not actually ours but God’s. Any attempt to box God out of our financial planning or refuse to let Him inform our resource management reveals our belief that we are pretending to be owners rather than God’s money managers.

Unfortunately, research has shown that for most Christians, their faith does not influence how they invest. Instead, they follow the traditional thinking idealized by Milton Friedman that the primary purpose of business is to increase shareholder value. Maximizing financial return over optimizing outcomes for all stakeholders becomes their primary objective. They justify the profit maximization attitude by “giving a portion back to God”. The error of such thinking is that we cannot give back to God what is already His.  

What would it look like for you to “surrender all” in the area of finance? Maybe instead of calculating to the penny a 15% tip for your waitress, you should start with rounding up to 30%, recognizing that most waitresses would benefit from the blessing of a generous tip. “Surrender all,” giving might consider that the principle of “first fruits” could mean giving away not only the highest appreciated stock in your portfolio, but giving away the stock with the greatest future potential. After all, the future lineage of an unblemished lamb was significantly more valuable than just the gift of the lamb itself. “Surrender all“ might require you to let go of monies that you have set aside for your own specific purpose (a new car, a vacation, a home remodel, etc.) and instead deploy those savings via a donation or investment into a project which will advance God’s kingdom but not increase your own net worth or comfort. “Surrender all” finances might require you to invest in a “concessionary” (lower than market return) investment so that employees can receive living wages. “Surrender all” finances might cause you to eliminate investments from your portfolio that profit from the exploitation of workers, that profit from people’s addictions, that create profane entertainment, or that jeopardize the rights of the unborn. The world says to make as much profit as you can, any way that you can. A Christian should be just as concerned about how profits are made as they are about how much profit is made. “Surrender all” investing recognizes that God’s holiness must extend to our portfolio so that His eternal purposes can be achieved. Would you be willing to surrender some profit by investing in a business located in the heart of temple prostitution in India so that the Good News of Jesus could be lifted up in a dark place among workers? “Surrender all” requires obedience and submitting to the authority of God as he calls you to deploy resources not for your own benefit but for His eternal purposes.

I wonder, “Do you have a ‘surrender all’ attitude when it comes to matters of finance, investments, and stewardship?” Consider these words from Judson Van DeVenter:

All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at His feet I bow;
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me, Jesus, take me now.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.