{"id":627,"date":"2018-09-18T02:31:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T02:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=627"},"modified":"2018-09-18T09:31:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T09:31:48","slug":"lose-lives-find-freedom-10-steps-freedom-week-2-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/lose-lives-find-freedom-10-steps-freedom-week-2-day-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Why We Have to Lose Our Lives to Find Freedom (10 Steps to Freedom Week 2 Day 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoReynolds\"
Reynolds<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom<\/a>. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus!<\/em><\/p>\n

STEP TWO: day 2<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Surrender<\/i><\/b> and unleash the Spirit\u2019s power within you<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

There is one phrase, one teaching repeated by Jesus more times in the Gospels than anything else. Six different times, Jesus is recorded as teaching this timeless truth:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor whoever wants to save their\u00a0life\u00a0will\u00a0lose\u00a0it, but whoever\u00a0loses their\u00a0life\u00a0for me will find it.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/span>Matthew 16:25<\/span><\/p>\n

If this was important enough for Jesus to teach repeatedly, it should be important enough for us to live out today. What Jesus is teaching here is the principle of surrender<\/i>. Our natural desire as humans is to live for ourselves, to be the masters of our own fate, to direct our own path and to be responsible only to ourselves. As natural as that is to us, it will only lead to death. Freedom comes through surrender, when we stop doing life our way, when we stop being in charge, when we stop trying to save ourselves and when we surrender everything to God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the power comes through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). We\u2019re called to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), and when the Holy Spirit fills us, we have the power we need to see our lives forever changed. But the Holy Spirit is not going to fill us if we\u2019re already full of ourselves. To experience the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit unleashed within us, we need to empty ourselves, we need to give up control of our lives, we need to surrender. If you want to experience true freedom, you have to do it God\u2019s way. You have to put both hands up and surrender yourself completely to God.<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION<\/span><\/p>\n

1. It doesn\u2019t make much sense on the surface to find your life by losing it, but Jesus taught that freedom comes through surrender. How hard has it been for you to fully surrender to God in the past?<\/span><\/p>\n

2. If you were honest, what is the one thing today you\u2019re holding onto the tightest, the one thing you have trouble giving over and surrendering to God?<\/span><\/p>\n

You can read other devotional entries\u00a0for 10 Steps to Freedom\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus! STEP TWO: day 2 Surrender and unleash the Spirit\u2019s power within you There is one phrase, one teaching repeated by Jesus more times in the Gospels than anything else. Six different times,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[324,318,65,294,326],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-steps-to-freedom","tag-10-steps","tag-freedom","tag-jesus","tag-lose","tag-surrender"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy We Have to Lose Our Lives to Find Freedom (10 Steps to Freedom Week 2 Day 2) - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The one teaching repeated by Jesus more times than any other reminds us why we need to lose if we want to experience freedom.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/lose-lives-find-freedom-10-steps-freedom-week-2-day-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why We Have to Lose Our Lives to Find Freedom (10 Steps to Freedom Week 2 Day 2) - 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Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. 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