By John Thiel

Romans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 

What do we actually do with our sins and mistakes we practise? We yield to the impulse that comes to us. The Bible says don’t yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness. There is a part of us that yields to the wrong and now instead of doing that we are called upon to yield ourselves to Gods impulse and direction and our body members as instruments of righteousness. Yielding my functioning body as an instrument of righteousness unto God is the opposite of yielding it to sin.

Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members [as] instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness unto God.

Alive From the Dead

In this whole spectrum of communication Paul was talking about baptism.

Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Yield yourself to God because now you are dead, no longer yield to death, yield to life because you are dead.

If we would walk without fear, we must know that the hand of Jesus Christ holds our own firmly. And we can only know this by searching the Word of the living God. . . . {HP 258.6}

God desires that men shall feel their dependence upon Him and trust to that Hand that can save to the uttermost, that Heart that throbs in response to the appeals of suffering humanity. We must not trust in man or make flesh our arm. Our trust must be placed in a Hand that is warm with life and a Heart that throbs with love for the helpless. {HP 258.7}

This conditions the mind to understand what yielding to the Lord actually means. It is a dependant element upon him. I’m absolutely dependent on him. Instead running my life with my own governing self, I’m to let him guide trusting him with implicit trust in every respect. In daily decisions it’s, what is it Lord? I am going to make a mess of my life if I don’t rely on you. As he communicates to you as you search his will in your life that is what he wants you to do.  We are not say this is hard but give over. His hand is warm with life, his heart throbs with love for the helpless.

The Governing Force

The principle, the action of yielding is what we are exploring. You can yield to somebody you know is trustworthy. To yield and to understand the doing of that you have to understand the governing force inside of you. The governing force is identified as a very strong force within yourself.

1 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of Man

You are spirited person, that is a force. What is that component? The power of the will. The spirited wilful being is the part to be addressed when yielding.

The tempted one needs to understand the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man–the power of decision, of choice. {MH 176.1}

Why do I do things? It is my will. If I will something I will do it. If I don’t really will it’s hard. I can’t do it so I will not. It is as simple as that. If I do something that is wrong and I’m looking at the temptation and I yield to the temptation as I really will that. If I do something without my will I am not using the force. I am letting myself go like a dumb animal and I’m not using the will.

Everything depends on the right action of the will. Desires for goodness and purity are right, so far as they go; but if we stop here, they avail nothing. Many will go down to ruin while hoping and desiring to overcome their evil propensities. They do not yield the will to God. They do not choose to serve Him. {MH 176.1}

If the Lord communicates something to me and my will needs to be yielded to it. That is the answer to something that is so hard. We have to deal with the motive force, the will. It is the governing force. This is the reality that every natural human holds. His internal personal governing sense is very dear to him. He allows no other entity to take the reins. If someone wants to enforce their will on you, you say no as it’s not natural to the human nature. The spirit of God can discover very quickly within us that I don’t want to.

Acts 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

God is very close to us and he wants my heart.

Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

That is what he is saying in Revelation:

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

This is what the Lord is yearning for us to do, to yield to let him. He wants to come in, he is very close to us. He is so close to us that in him we live and move and have our being.  What does it suggest? He is gentlemen, he doesn’t force himself. He lets me choose what I’m going to do with my will power. I’d like to come in but I’d like you to wilfully open the door. I’m so close to you, yet he doesn’t force himself. When I think about this I become so overwhelmed that he could withdraw his life energies to me and I’d be gone but he still sustains me even while I’m not yielding my will to him.

What Is the Knocking?

What is really in the knocking? What does it mean to open my heart to the knock?

Every warning, reproof, and entreaty in the Word of God, or through His delegated messengers, is a knock at the door of the heart; it is the voice of Jesus, asking for entrance. With every knock unheeded, your determination to open becomes weaker and weaker. If the voice of Jesus is not heeded at once, it becomes confused in the mind with a multitude of other voices, the world’s care and business engross the attention, and conviction dies away. The heart becomes less impressible, and lapses into a perilous unconsciousness of the shortness of time, and of the great eternity beyond. {OHC 352.3}

If we reject the appeal and the reproof today, we will be less prone to yield to it the next day. The best thing to do is to yield straight away. God is frequently knocking on my heart. I have let him in on one point and then comes the next point. He wants to have my whole heart regularly responding to all his reproofs and warnings. Surrender what you know and what you don’t know. When I am in a state of yielding as soon as soon as it comes, there is no argument or debate. That is where the Lord wants us. When a person has come to that entrance into the path of life he enters consciously into that willing yielding forever in the future. That is what baptism is all about. I will yield today, tomorrow and the next day.

I will. As soon as the Lord shows me something I will. No baulking. As the Lord states you jump and do it. To consent to his entrance, to yield my internal sense of control, my will is that element. Because I want to control myself, it’s very difficult to let someone else get into that space but God says no let me. That is the hard. If I know this is my problem, then die. Baptism is dying and rising again.  When the Lord prompts he creates it and there is a willpower inside of you that must respond to that.   This is what is equated with these scriptures of yielding and giving up.

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Look at Christ being crucified and what agony of soul he went through. He did that. My God why have you forsaken me? What am I going to do? When he struggles and sees God’s way of how God walked with him in the past he says let this cup pass from me but not my will but thine be done, Father in your hand I commend my spirit. That is the entrance activity. Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me. The thing that keeps me alive is yes. The fact that I’m alive is because he keeps me going instead of me being the governing force that holds me in my own self will as it’s his faith. I’ve yielded now by my death and it’s his faith that’s going to carry me through but it’s my will that will happen. Because he loved me and gave himself for me, that has to operate in the mind to achieve that readiness for baptism. When Jesus died and he said into thy hand I commend my spirit. What was the struggle that happened before he did that?

Matthew 27:50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

Yield

John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

It was his will to give up the ghost. He yielded up his spirit. The actual struggle that he went through needs to be understood that I can do it with him. Jesus is hanging on the cross, darkness is around him.

Suddenly the gloom lifted from the cross, and in clear, trumpet like tones, that seemed to resound throughout creation, Jesus cried, “It is finished.” “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” A light encircled the cross, and the face of the Saviour shone with a glory like the sun. He then bowed His head upon His breast, and died. {DA 756.2}

What happened?

Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father’s favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor. {DA 756.3}

This is the mind occupation of what it means to be crucified with Christ. As the reproof and warning come up before your mind, as the prospect of entering into the path of Christs walking, you realise inside of yourself I’m so sinful and hopeless it’s so hard. As that occupies your mind, you are looking at Jesus as he suffered that very thing as you in the atonement. You see him at one with you.

As the will and the spirit of Jesus yielded, he said not mine will but thine be done. No one takes my life, I lay it down. No one can take my life from me I am the only one that can give it. He is knocking, he doesn’t force me. It’s dependant on my will and I must make the choice and when I make the choice intelligently and deliberately I can yield as Jesus did. If you do that, then he will come in as you yield. You will open the door and then you have life.

God has given us the power of choice; it is ours to exercise. We cannot change our hearts, we cannot control our thoughts, our impulses, our affections. We cannot make ourselves pure, fit for God’s service. But we can choose to serve God, we can give Him our will; then He will work in us to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Thus our whole nature will be brought under the control of Christ. {MH 176.2}

The power of choice is what I do with my will. I can’t do it of my own self, the only thing I can do is give him my will. I can do that. I can’t change my thoughts or affections as they are going through my system. I just have to choose what God has said to me is going to be mine and yield to it. Yes God I want that, I don’t want this other. Apostle Paul demonstrates this in his own experience and testimony.  He was on the road to Damascus and was kicking against the pricks. Jesus met him and said it is hard for you to kick against the pricks. As he was overwhelmed with God’s presence, he then had to make this decision.

During the long hours when Saul was shut in with God alone, he recalled many of the passages of Scripture referring to the first advent of Christ. Carefully he traced down the prophecies, with a memory sharpened by the conviction that had taken possession of his mind. As he reflected on the meaning of these prophecies he was astonished at his former blindness of understanding and at the blindness of the Jews in general, which had led to the rejection of Jesus as the promised Messiah. To his enlightened vision all now seemed plain. He knew that his former prejudice and unbelief had clouded his spiritual perception and had prevented him from discerning in Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah of prophecy. {AA 119.1}

As Saul yielded himself fully to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, he saw the mistakes of his life and recognized the far-reaching claims of the law of God. He who had been a proud Pharisee, confident that he was justified by his good works, now bowed before God with the humility and simplicity of a little child, confessing his own unworthiness and pleading the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Saul longed to come into full harmony and communion with the Father and the Son; and in the intensity of his desire for pardon and acceptance he offered up fervent supplications to the throne of grace.  {AA 119.2}

The prayers of the penitent Pharisee were not in vain. The inmost thoughts and emotions of his heart were transformed by divine grace; and his nobler faculties were brought into harmony with the eternal purposes of God. Christ and His righteousness became to Saul more than the whole world.  {AA 120.1}

Once you have that you are in the condition of what new birth and baptism is representing in symbol.  That initial yielding is to be done in every subsequent experience.

2 Corinthians 4:10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

That death of Jesus I’m to always carry it in my body.  The same thing I have come to terms with in the beginning is to continue so that the life of Jesus might be manifested in me.  If self comes into function again, you’ve lost Jesus.  To hold him there take up your cross daily and follow him.  This is the great need of every believer.

By the influence of the Spirit, the most discordant may be brought into harmony. Unselfishness is to bind God’s people together with firm, tender bonds. There is a vast power in the church when the energies of the members are under the control of the Spirit, gathering good from every source, educating, training, and disciplining self. Thus is presented to God a powerful organization, through which He can work for the conversion of sinners. Thus heaven and earth are connected, and all divine agencies cooperate with human instrumentalities.  {ML 39.5}

Amen.