The Surrender You Keep Avoiding | Mornings with Mico

Yo people, what's going on, man? How y'all doing today? We are, we back, we diving into James today. James four, starting at verse six. I'll get there in a second, man. But the inspiration behind today and probably even what I'll delve into for the rest of this week was from a conversation that I was having with one of my guys. And we were just kind of having a conversation about just his heart space, his head space and where he is in his walk with God as well as just like where he is just like in life. Like what's just things that he's struggling with, things that he's seeing in life. And just, I don't know, kind of just feeling like he's just in a rough patch. And it was just very apparent like that there was a correlation between like just where he is in his faith and then kind of what he's experiencing in real life. And it was obvious that there's just this lack of surrender as we were just kind of talking about things that he was still doing and, you know, things that he knows that are displeasing to God, just things that, like vices and things like that. It just was like, I could just see like this connection with like this lack of surrender and that being like this barrier, you know, to a degree between him and God

and then him having, you know, just kind of like a rough go at it in life and just not like even pursuing God's voice in all of it. And as we were just talking, like I said, it just, it was just apparent. Like, I'm like, bro, like there's just some things that you just need to surrender. There just, you're not fully embracing, you know, this call to surrender. And he acknowledged that or whatever, but, you know, from there, that's kind of the mindset that I was going into with my reading. And then when I ran across this passage, it's in James chapter four, verse six. We'll go from six to 10 and it says, but he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. And just reading this, like just from the way that it starts, you know, but he gives us more grace.

And that is why scripture says God opposes the proud, shows favor to the humble. And it's like in this relationship with God, so many things that, like so often, it just all points back to this posture of humility. It's like, that's where so much of this starts, this posture of humility. Even surrender, it starts with this posture of humility. Lord, have your way. Lord, I agree, your way is better than mine. And it's not this, like there's layers to which you'll grow deeper in it, but that it's so necessary for this walk. It's so necessary for surrender, to just posture yourselves in this humility. As I'm looking at this passage, it seems to be like this progression, right? Like throughout the entire, throughout this passage, it starts with, you know, the idea of humility, right? He shows favor to the humble. The next, there's this submission that happens. Submit yourselves, then go to God, resist the devil. After the submission is the resistance piece. Like there is this call to in drawing near to God, to die to some of these things that the enemy is gonna try to trip you up with. Like in our submitting, in our surrendering, in our, you know, humility, like there is still this call. And we've talked about it a number of times. And it's something you just gonna,

I'm just gonna keep, you know, ringing that same, you know, same bell because it's just so true. There is this call to holiness. There is this call to die to the things of the flesh, die to the things that the enemy is trying to trip you up with. For me, I remember early on in my walk, where as I began really trying to take my walk serious and grow closer to God, it felt like God just kept showing me things that he wanted to remove from me. Kept showing me these different things, like, okay, now stop doing this. Now don't do this anymore. And it was like this, I don't know what I would say. this refining process but it was more so just him showing me and it was my choice like I had to choose to you know change my number and not answer those text messages anymore or to not hang around that certain crew anymore because it kind of pulled me back into this space like there was this there was this intentionality that it took on my part to resist um the enemy um after it talks about resistance it says resist the devil and he will flee from you come near to god and he will come near to you wash your hands you sinners purify your hearts you double-minded grieve mourn in will and this the idea of of washing your hands right it's this idea of coming to him um as you're coming to him like and as you're resisting and and you know it's they kind of go hand in hand the resistance and the um the cleansing the purifying um to to put to do away with the things that you once you know um embraced right whether that's smoking whether that's you know um masturbation whether that's um whatever the case right like I don't we don't have to go down a whole long list of things right but um I hope that as this as I'm speaking to you like maybe the thing that that you need to wash your hands from you know comes to mind and that's the holy spirit bringing that to your mind right now that's the holy spirit you know speaking to you about no this is the thing that I want you to cleanse yourself from as you're coming near to me

and the crazy thing is not all of it is always seeing some of it is is is or not inherently seeing some of it is you know you're just binge watching too much tv like that that's something that the enemy is using to distract you like I want you to do away with that like spend more time with me whatever the case may be man but that's just that's that's that's just part of this progression that I see here from this um humility to the submission to the resistance to the cleansing and then um where do we go it goes into chapter what is it uh oh no verse nine grieve mourn and wail change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom humble yourselves before the lord and he will lift you up and it's it's the humbling yourself before the lord it's this drawing near to him it's this coming to him in his posture of humility and what uh what that speaks to me is just the nearness it's the nearness of god it's it's it's it's embracing him with the proper posture um into into um into stepping into this nearness with him I think that a lot of times we often want like a nearness to god we want a closeness with god but without addressing the things that actually create distance and as we're just seeing in this passage like as god is you know loving caring desiring oneness with us desiring relationship with us there's also a a a call to this holiness there's a call to resist there's a call to be humble like he wants you come as you are but there's a process um that that you're called to embrace in your relationship with him we don't we don't drift into closeness with god we have to choose it we choose to to to to pursue a closeness to god we choose to um embrace you know our call to the process in order for us to remain close to god because the bible tells us it's it's seeing that separates us from god right like that's the thing that that brings a a fracture a fracture to the relationship and not in this not saying it in the sense where it's like oh once you see it now you know god is done with you but it's like that's the thing that brings a fracture to the relationship so it's like hey my grace can cover that but i don't want you to dwell in this place of sin and just continuing in this pattern like no i want you to draw near to me but this is what that looks like it's going to look like humility it's going to look like surrender it's going to look like resisting it's going to look like um dying to the flesh and and and cleansing yourself you know the way you speak the way you think the things you're watching on tv like removing those cells from you and drawing near to me like that's just that's that's that's how this goes this is this is his design this is the way it goes you know the the invitation is is is very clear it's come near but don't come partially come fully submit all of the things that you struggle with

to me come fully bring all of that don't keep anything tucked away and and concealed like no come fully to me and bring all of that to the table and allow you know um this process to to run its course this process of being refined being sifted being being um purified, being cleansed, like embrace that, man. It's just, it's a part of this walk with God. I wanna leave you with a thought, two thoughts actually. Where in your life are you resisting God instead of submitting to him? Where are some areas in your life that maybe God is calling you to put some things down or stop doing some things, but instead of you submitting to him and resisting the enemy, you're actually submitting to the enemy and resisting God, but then still wanting this closeness with him, right? Let the Holy Spirit pull some things to your mind. When you're one-on-one time with God today, sit with that. Let the Holy Spirit pull some things from your heart. What comes to the surface when you sit on that thought? The things in life that are, or areas in life where you're resisting God instead of submitting to him. And also, what are you holding on to that's creating distance between you and God? For transparency, one of the things my dude was struggling with was just smoking weed. You know what I mean? But recognizing like, man, like this is becoming a barrier more and more. You know, this is this crutch

that he's leaned on for so many years. And he knows like God is calling him to let that thing go. And he's just kind of like, like he'll let it go for a minute, but then it's like, I'm not gonna completely get rid of it. I'll just circle back around to it, you know, when the pressure gets too thick and that's the relief, that's gonna be my relief or whatever. But there's this, when we talk about resisting the enemy, what I've realized when I struggled with that is when I struggled with that, and I can't say that it's been a struggle, not with weed, but just for me, it was celibacy for some years or some years ago. And when I would find myself falling victim to temptation, it would be like, if I can go, it was like, I would resist Satan long enough until she sent that text at the right time, you know, and then I will fall back into it. And I felt like, God, there was always like, for me, it was actually literally like a timeframe. It's like, I could never make it past like 21 days. And I had this mindset, like if I can just make it beyond 21 days, then I can experience maybe freedom or breakthrough with this thing. Like if I can resist him long enough, and that may be the case for you.

It may be the case. You may find yourself in a pattern of resisting for a while and then giving in. And it's probably around the same timeframe. I wanna let you know that that's not coincidence. If that is the case for you, that sometimes like, just like the word says, if you resist him long enough, he'll flee because there's easier prey out there. He'll flee. And your call is to remain postured in that resistance to him and drawing near to God. I don't know. I kind of went on longer than I intended to, but I just feel led to share that with y'all just in, cause I don't know, maybe that may bless somebody. Maybe that for somebody like you're like, dang, that's the thing right there, bro. Like that's it for me, you know? I don't know, but I feel led to share that. So I'ma leave y'all with that, but hope this blesses y'all, man. And let's grow in surrender.