All to Jesus I surrender,
All To Jesus I Surrender // Judson W. Van DeVenter (1896)
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
This old hymn exemplifies what I want to focus on in today’s passage. The story of Achan. Israel is given the city of Jericho and Achan decides to keep for himself some of the things to be set aside for consecration to the Lord. Dude literally steals from God.
Steals.
From God.
But what is interesting is that this one guy — out of a nation of more than 1 million members — decides to go rogue and cuts off the blessing of the Lord for everyone! The Apostle Paul gives this analogy in his first letter to the Corinthians:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
One rogue member of our body NOT under submission can jeopardize everything. Your hands, eyes, mouth, heart, mind? Is everything ‘disciplined’? Satan only needs a foothold, he is patient and willing to play the long game. He’s not likely to jump out and challenge you to abandon God, but rather take our uncontrolled mouth and use it as a vector for attack that will rob us of the blessing of God. And slowly, insidiously, he will rob us of our imperishable reward. And just like Achar, that one area that went unchecked will disqualify us from receiving the prize that had been waiting for us.
Don’t let any part of you be an Achar, bring every part of you under control. So that you can indeed surrender all to our blessed Saviour.