How Walking before the Father as Surrendered as Jesus 

Results in God’s Design of Glory for Man

David speaking: “I hear the Lord saying, ‘I will stay close to you, instructing you and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I will advise you along the way and lead you forth with My eyes as your guide. So don’t make it difficult; don’t be stubborn when I take you where you’ve not been before. Don’t make Me tug you and pull you along. Just come with Me!’” 

(Psalms 32:8-9 TPT)

…God raised up David to be king, for God said of him, ‘I have found in David, son of Jesse, a man who always pursues my heart and will accomplish all that I have destined him to do.’ 

(Acts 13:22 TPT)

As we recognize that God desires to direct every aspect of the course of our lives, let’s first consider to what end this is that we may wholeheartedly follow Him. We note that Paul, James, and the others positioned themselves as bondslaves of the Lord. Did they perceive something about Jesus Christ that we need to recover as they willingly gave the Lord the full ownership of their lives that He requested? Paul firmly stated to the early followers of Christ: “You should [^LDon’t you…?] know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who is in you and was given to you by God. So you do not belong to yourselves, because you were ·bought by God [bought] for a price.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20 EXB) What these bondslaves of Jesus knew was that Jesus had made the way to know delicious freedom from sin and its fruit, death. These followers also came into the ultimate fulfillment of being welcomed into the embrace of the Father, the Creator, who had revealed His nature as perfect love. No longer were they prodigals. They were reinstated sons of God. [Luke 15:17-22 TPT recounts the story of the prodigal who really didn’t know the Father until Abba “raced out to meet him, swept him up in his arms, hugged him dearly, and kissed him over and over with tender love.” The son admitted his waywardness—his sins against the Father. Further, the wayward son started to declare his unworthiness. Right then, the Father stopped the son from speaking of himself as unworthy by putting the best robe on his newfound son’s shoulders, a ring as a seal of sonship, and the very best shoes. Finally, the Father inaugurated a great celebration of the son’s redemption.]  The early church knew Jesus had inaugurated “the restoration and fulfillment of all things” by His work on the cross. (Eph. 4:10 TPT) Nothing the world had to offer could compare to the new life—indeed, a new creation that the Savior had delivered to humankind, and it still doesn’t. Once born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, these men and women of the early church were flowing in rivers of the supernatural zoe life of God. They were literally experiencing resurrection life from inside their bodies.

Jesus came as the Pattern Son for God’s reborn new race of humans so it’s instructive to look at how He walked with the Father. “Not My will, but Thine be done,” marked Jesus’ existence even unto death. (Luke 22:42 KJV) Indeed, Jesus was dependent on the Father as He said, “The Son can do nothing ·alone [on his own initiative; by himself]. The Son does only what he sees the Father doing, ·because the Son does whatever the Father does [^Lfor whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise].” (John 5:19 EXB) And being kept by the Father’s love feeding the deep needs of his heart enabled Jesus’ continuous surrender. And selfless love is also the great gain of Christians. An existence of being loved by God and in turn loving Him, ourselves, and others is the ultimate fulfillment of the Christian walk. 

John 15:9-14 describes clearly that God’s design for humans who have come to exist in Christ is to become love beings. Lovers. About this call Jesus spoke, “I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let My love nourish your hearts. If you keep My commands, you will live in My love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by His love. My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness! “So this is my command: Love each other deeply, as much as I have loved you. For the greatest love of all is a love that sacrifices all. And this great love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends. “You show that you are My intimate friends when you obey all that I command you.”

As we consider the summons to surrender to the Lord, we see that just like Jesus, there is a cross to bear for disciples of the Savior. But in saying “yes” to Jesus’ call to a life of selfless love, there is also the glorious liberty of experiencing and manifesting the very nature of God. Matthew 16:24 records Jesus’ beckoning of His chosen disciples, “If ·people want [^Lanyone wants] to follow me, they must ·give up the things they want [deny themselves; turn from selfishness; set aside their own interests]. They must ·be willing even to give up their lives to [^Ltake up their cross and] follow me.” (EXB)

Following the cost of the cross, the Message Bible dramatically describes what believers are going to get if they continue on in yielding to God’s workings: a new creation. “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with Him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with Him! That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” (Romans 8:15-25 MSG)

It’s necessary to know this end from the beginning when we look at the cross before us and the yielding of our lives to God as requirements for success in holding out until the end. Revelation 22:3 reveals it’s the bondslaves who will reign with the Messiah one day. In God’s final deliverance, “There will no longer exist anything that is cursed [because sin and illness and death are gone]; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve and worship Him [with great awe and joy and loving devotion].”(AMP)

With this summary of God’s plan of redemption, let’s study verses that will  give us God’s views on the human will and thereby keep us yielded.

The obedient ones comprise God’s bride company. The Lord praises His bride’s yieldedness. In the Song 1:10, the King says aloud that His fiance’s neck is “beautiful with strings of jewels.” (AMP) Jewels in the Bible are ornaments of endowments of the Divine nature. In Song of Songs 7:4, the King again describes the neck of His betrothed, which when yielded represents the surrender of the Body to the Headship of Jesus, saying “It is as beautiful as a tower of ivory.” (NLT) This “tower” reveals purity and stateliness in her character. 

And, in Song of Songs 4:4, the neck of the bride is compared to a tower: “Your neck is like the tower of David, Built with rows of [glistening] stones, Whereon hang a thousand shields, All of them shields of warriors.” Her alignment with the King of kings is likened to being equipped with weaponry. She is secure, and she is well-defended. 

A few verses later in Chapter 4:9-10 of the Song of Songs, the King in full vulnerability exudes with passion over His counterpart, “You have ravished my heart and given me courage, my sister, my [promised] bride; You have ravished my heart and given me courage with a single glance of your eyes, With one jewel of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my [promised] bride! How much better is your love than wine.”(AMP) Her surrendered will, or neck adorned with jewels, speaks of a life of value; beauty; durability or the ability to withstand wear, pressure, or damage; and true wealth.

How the King prizes a yielded will as He can readily lead that one into union with Himself and the Father. That one accomplishes His purposes. That one is an overcomer.

In contrast, the Lord of all of creation is contrary to those who decide not to yield to His good rule. Yahweh speaks through Jeremiah several times about human rebellion. In 7:6 the Lord is grieved: “Yet they did not listen to Me and obey Me or bend their ear [to hear Me], but stiffened their neck; they did more evil and behaved worse than their fathers.” (AMP) God closes down His classroom when His people walk in pride in 17:23: “Yet they would not listen and obey and control their behavior; but they were stiff-necked in order not to hear and take instruction.” (AMP) In 19:15, punishment is promised in response to unyieldedness: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am going to bring on this city and on all its towns, all the devastation that I have declared against it, because they have become stiff-necked and refused to hear and obey My words.’” (AMP) To make the neck stiff or to harden the neck speaks of obstinacy, stubbornness, and rebellion. 

2 Kings 17:14 diagnoses unbelief in the hardening of the heart: “However they did not listen, but stiffened their necks as did their fathers who did not believe (trust in, rely on, remain steadfast to) the Lord their God.” (AMP)

Israel went on to turn a deaf ear to God Nehemiah records in 9:17: “They refused to listen and obey, And did not remember Your wondrous acts which You had performed among them; So they stiffened their necks and [in their rebellion] appointed a leader in order to return them to slavery in Egypt. But You are a God of forgiveness,
Gracious and merciful and compassionate, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness; And You did not abandon them.” (AMP) However, throughout the Old Testament, Yahweh shows how longsuffering He is with humankind. Because God is forbearing love, He ever welcomes us back into His fold.

There are other verses that record God’s response of exasperation to the stiffening of the neck.

2 Chronicles issues a warning in 30:8, “Now do not stiffen your neck [becoming obstinate] like your fathers but yield to the Lord and come to His sanctuary which He has sanctified and set apart forever, and serve the Lord your God, so that His burning anger will turn away from you.” (AMP)

Deuteronomy speaks of circumcision, the cutting away of the flesh or a type of gaining freedom from the flesh nature through the cross of Christ as the way to overcome any resistance to God, in Deuteronomy 10:16: So circumcise [that is, remove sin from] your heart, and be stiff-necked (stubborn, obstinate) no longer. (AMP) 

Finally, in Hosea, God particularly reveals His heart to forgive and restore even in the face of gross betrayal by His beloved Israel: “I led them gently with cords of a man, with bonds of love [guiding them], And I was to them as one who lifts up and eases the yoke [of the law] over their jaws; And I bent down to them and fed them.”(AMP)

Yahweh was wooing His children to Christ by turning them back to the Torah and the Prophets. Yahweh’s heart was to bring His people new creation life in a full deliverance from the fall in the garden. But they must needs yield and say yes to Jesus as the only source of life. Thus, we have come full circle on the matter of the will. We are left with a choice: God’s way of turning to Jesus with forsaking the world and the cutting off of the flesh nature for eternal, spiritual life or the way of self, resulting in dysfunction and death. Though there is the cost of the cross with a ”yes,” there is the gaining of God—the glory of becoming like Christ.

“Not to draw forth the neck from evil is not to admit truth; not to walk erect is thereby not to look to higher things, that is to those which are of heaven.” Emanuel Swedenborg

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