The Yielded Vessel

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says, "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27) But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28) and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29) that no flesh should glory in His presence." I am opening with these verses because, well, they say a lot! This is really about how God delights in calling, using and growing those people that the world passes by and counts as nothing. There seem to be many of them, you know. God really doesn't care about the color of the vessel, the price of the vessel, the hierarchy of the vessel. What God cares about is the vessel that has yielded fully unto His will and purpose. The vessel that says to the Lord, "Sure, Lord, point me in the direction that you would have me to go! I trust you!" The vessel that is weathered, broken, fractured and looked upon as not worth much is the very vessel the Lord counts as the most valuable! The one that wants to be used, that desires to be used and the one that isn't selfish about being used!

Yielded Vessels Asks to Be Used! 

It is truly amazing what God can, and will, do through someone’s life who doesn’t have to have the credit. Those are the ones God uses the greatest it would seem because we are all to give glory to God in all that we do but some people, more often than not, take the credit and jeopardizes His witness through them. God uses all kinds of people, don't get me wrong. But it's those yielded vessels that become the strongest vessels. It's when you feel like you don't have much to offer, that you aren't capable of doing something so "grand" that deems you perfect for the "job!" You see, the reason you'd be perfect for the job is because when God does do great things through you, He will get the credit because everyone will know it was Him and not you! And that is what is supposed to be anyway! God is always looking for yielded vessels that He can use in a dynamic, grand way. Until our souls are completely broken of their own strength through the Cross, they will continue to influence, lead, and direct us. And oftentimes, that influence and direction is our own desires, our own wills and of the world. Once we fully submit our souls to Jesus Christ, and our natural strength and worldly influence is broken, we’ll then be able to serve God as He desires, in His power, in His will, for His purpose and in His strength.

 2 Corinthians 12:9–10, "And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10) Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." I have found this to be so true in my own life! Early in my walk, and a time much later when I fell on my knees, I had to learn to surrender and to relinquish my own strength in order for His power to be able to flow through me, sustaining me and guiding me. There was a time when I wanted things my way, in my time, and for my own selfishness. I'm not proud of that time but as I learned the lesson the hard way, I wouldn't have it any other way! Why? Because having to struggle with giving up my control and power and learning the importance of surrendering, made me who I am today! It showed me so much about God's strength versus my own strength and for the record, it doesn't even compare!! I wanted what I wanted but they weren't the right things. I wanted to control things and the outcome of things but they never worked out. I was fractured. I was a broken soul searching for my place in this world. I was searching for acceptance, for love, for friendship and for belonging. I look back on that time and realize I would never be able to obtain those things until I surrendered to Jesus! And surrendering is hard! I was never a materialistic person and I'm still not to this day. But, sometimes the world appeared "lovely" and desirable. I used to fight that all the time, the worldly pull. It seemed like such a battle back then. Now? Well, it's much easier because as with any lesson that has been learned and taught the hard way, I don't desire to control things any longer. I don't have that desire to want things that aren't God's will. I've been broken down, weakened to the fullest, and had to be, in order to see just how much more satisfying God's will, plans and blessings were for me than what I THOUGHT would make me happy!

The world tends to see someone's natural strength as a formidable and viable asset. Others see it as a demonstration of a strong character. I admire strong characteristics in people but God, however, says just the opposite. He’s saying in the above Scripture that only when we are weak then can we be made strong. Only when we are yielded vessels can His strength work through us. According to the Bible, it's through the weakness of man and the foolish things of the world that God’s power can be seen. This is confirmed in 1 Corinthians 1:27, "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;" Let's take a look at some of the examples that God uses "the weak things of the world in order to confound the things that are mighty" and the "foolish things to confound the wise." 

• Moses used a staff to command the hand of the Lord. (Exodus 4:20)
• Samson used a jawbone to kill a thousand men. (Judges 15:15)
• David used a smooth stone to kill the giant, Goliath. (1 Samuel 17:40)
• Jesus fed the five thousand with only five barley loaves. (John 6:9–11)
• The widow baked a handful of flour and oil that fed Elijah and her family for weeks. (1 Kings 17:12)

The End of Ourselves is the Beginning

This is all saying that God’s power will work greatly through us only when we reach the end of ourselves. By reaching the end of ourselves, it becomes evident real quickly that we must surrender to God, to relinquish our own "self" and strength. His great power will work through us as we reach the end of ourselves when we realize that we can't depend upon our own natural strength. In others words, only when we are completely yielded to Him will God be able to fill us with His power and accomplish His will through us. This, my dear friends and readers, is the ultimate in a relationship with Jesus Christ! Zechariah 4:6 says, "So he answered and said to me: "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts." Therefore, it isn't by our own power, strength or our own might, but rather, it's by God’s Spirit that His will can, and will, be done. The process of being emptied of oneself and filled with the Lord God is what the sanctification process is all about. This is aptly called the exchanged life. We give God our life; He then gives us His.

The greatest example of "strength through weakness." is Jesus Christ Himself! He was born in a stable in a small, unknown town called Bethlehem. He was the son of an uneducated, yet very humble, carpenter. And He was raised in the nondescript town of Nazareth where it was asked in John 1:46, "And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." Jesus wasn’t from royalty in the eyes of the world, He wasn’t raised in a well-known family with prestige and power, in the eyes of the world, and He wasn’t brought up in an important city or country.  And yet, He was the King of kings, the King of the universe, and the Creator of all things! Jesus ultimately demonstrated that God’s power can be seen through the foolish and weak things of the world. Not only is Jesus’ birth an example of humility, but also His entire Life is an excellent example of what it means by yielding and gaining strength through weakness! Even though He was the Son of God and the King of kings and could, in a split second, bring down all of the legions of heaven, everything He did in His ministry was strictly by the direction of the Holy Spirit. He was a willing vessel through which God could implement His power. And implement His power He did!

Even in His Crucifixion, this principle is also shown. 2 Corinthians 13:4 tells us: "For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you." "Weakness" in this context does NOT mean feebleness, weak in strength or an inability, but rather a total relinquishment to God, a total yielding and openness to His will. This is the "weakness" I was searching for years ago and finally learned along the way! I searched and found what I needed because what I needed was to give up myself and be full of what God wanted for me! I wanted to be used in His will. I wanted to be blessed in abundance spiritually and if that meant I had to be broken and give up myself, then I would, and DID! So you see, according to the Bible, "weakness" means freedom from self, freedom from what others think, and freedom from our circumstances, thereby allowing a total reliance upon Jesus Christ. It means being cleansed of all known sin and self, so that He can be strong through us. This is how He is glorified. Psalm 89:17, "For You are the glory of their strength, And in Your favor our horn is exalted." Jesus lived His entire life in obedience to this very principle. Even though He was the Son of God, everything He did in His ministry was by the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him by the Father. Think about it! At any given moment in His time, He could have easily called upon all the heavenly angels to do His own will!  But because He loved the Father, and us, so much He chose to lay aside His own strength and ability and do only His Father’s will by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a love beyond understanding!!! A love I'm thankful I have in Him!

We must be able to do the same. Exodus 9:16 tells us, "But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." In other words, Jesus is the one to be glorified, not us! Consequently it’s only through weakness that God’s divine empowerment can be experienced. It is only through a yielded vessel that this can be accomplished fully through the Will of the Father. John 12:24–25, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25) He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." I bring this up now because as a direct result of yielding to the Holy Spirit, we will be able to handle situations that we never thought was possible. We will be able to endure circumstances we never could have endured in the natural and fight the enemy in ways we never dreamed were attainable. God’s power, if we allow it to accomplish its mission, would lead us first to repentance, then to surrender, and ultimately to being an overcomer bearing fruit! God is not looking for the capable and self-sufficient believers. He isn't looking for the fixed and self reliant. He isn't looking for the confident over achievers. What He is looking for are the broken, submissive, and humble believers. He is looking for the fractured and hurting. Remember Jesus Christ’s example. He was rejected, betrayed, and then killed. But it was His humiliation that led to His exaltation. The more we allow the Lord to break and to mold us, the more open and pliable we’ll become for His use.

2 Corinthians 4:8-12, "We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9) persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed - 10) always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11) For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12) So then death is working in us, but life in you." The best executives are those who have experienced catastrophic failures. The best pilots are those who have made a forced landing. The best writers are those who have been broken and hurt. The most successful are those who have tasted bitter failure. Brokenness is God’s path to blessings and His direct pathway to the kingdom. We have to allow the Lord to live IN us and work THROUGH us and in order for this to happen, we must YIELD and surrender. The real secret to
the Christian life is YIELDING to Christ and allowing Him to live His life through you. In learning
to "yield," you will be set free from the self-life and will be given the peace that you yearn for. YIELDING is the secret key to experiencing the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and every other aspect of the Christian life and walk with Jesus!

I Surrender ALL

2 Chronicles 30:8, "Now do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you." To yield anything means to simply make over that thing to the care and keeping of another. Then in essences, to yield ourselves to the Lord, is to make ourselves over to Him, giving Him the entire possession of ourselves and the control of our whole being. It means to abandon ourselves; to take hands off of ourselves. The word consecration is often used to express this kind of yielding, but I hardly believe it's the best substitute because it seems to convey the idea of doing something very self-sacrificing, very good and grand; and it would therefore admit of a subtle form of self-glorification. But true "yielding" conveys a far more humbling idea; it explicitly implies helplessness and weakness, and the glorification of another rather than of ourselves. Glorifying of God not of ourselves.

Romans 12:1 tells us, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." We are to "present" ourselves, to hand ourselves over to; to do with ourselves what we do with the money we entrust to the bank, make ourselves over to the care and keeping and use of God. What better place would you rather reside than in the hands and care of God Almighty?! It isn't the idea of sacrifice in the sense we usually give to that word, namely, like that of a great cross taken up; but rather, it's the sense of surrender, of abandonment, of giving up the control, keeping and use of ourselves unto the Lord. And this is our "reasonable service," or, as I would rather express it, our common sense service. If we are ill, it would certainly be the most profound common sense to put our care into the hands of a skillful, knowledgeable physician. Or, say, if we are lost, it would be common sense to put our guidance into the hands of a safe guide to lead us back on the right path. So, to put our poor, weak, foolish, helpless, stubborn selves into the care and keeping of the Amazing God who created us, and who loves us, and who, alone, can care for us, is certainly the most profound common sense of all! To yield to God means to belong to God, and to belong to God means to have all His infinite power, care and infinite love engaged on our side. Man is bound to take care of anything that belongs to him, family, pets, friends, material "things;" and so also, I would say it most reverently, is God.

We yield then we trust. I kind of believe that some people can't yield until they trust which is all backwards. That's a worldly, human rationalization. Not a spiritual one. But, the word believe is often used instead of the word trust, but the idea is the same. I'm finding more and more people have a difficult time trusting these days and trusting and believing are one in the same. It wouldn't surprise me then that those same individuals would have a hard time yielding. Jeremiah 17:7-8, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord. 8) For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit." Trusting can hardly be said to be distinct from yielding. In fact, it's an absolute necessary correlation to it. It would be nearly impossible for any of us to yield ourselves up to the care of a physician or to the guidance of a teacher if we didn't trust that physician or that teacher. On the other hand, it would be equally impossible for us to trust where we did not yield. Therefore, trusting simply means that when we have yielded ourselves up unto the Lord, or, have made ourselves over TO Him, we can then have perfect confidence that He will manage us, and everything concerning us, exactly right. We consequently leave the whole care and managing in His hands. Actually, it's what we do a hundred times a day with our friends, family, co-workers, bosses and authority figures. We are continually yielding ourselves or our affairs to the care and management of someone else, and feel little concern in so doing. We blindly do this daily, entrusting ourselves unto others. We never board a plane or step into a train that we don't take the steps of yielding and trusting. So if we find it an easy and natural thing to do this toward man, then how much more easy it must be to do it toward God!

Yielding and trusting requires obedience and is the logical outcome of yielding and trusting. If I yield myself up into the care of a physician, trusting that he will cure me, then I must obey his orders and instructions. No physician, however skillful, experienced or knowledgeable, can ever possibly cure a patient who will not obey his orders. Common sense ought to teach us this. If we want the Lord to care for us, to protect us from our enemies, and to provide for our needs, then it would stand to reason that we must obey His voice, and walk in the paths He marks out for us. Romans 6:16, "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" and Exodus 23:22-23, "But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23) For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off." Whatever difficulty we are in or facing in our lives, we must yield, trust and obey! First, we must YIELD it absolutely and fully to the Lord; secondly, we must trust Him implicitly and without anxiety to manage it; and thirdly, we must simply and quietly obey His will in regard to it. It is of no use for us to think of yielding ourselves, or any part of our lives to the Lord, and trusting Him to care for us and keep us, UNLESS we make up our minds also to obey Him. In obeying Him, we heed His instructions, directions, and follow what path He wants us to take. We can't expect to have a godly outcome if we aren't going to be obedient to His voice!!!

The mark of a born-again Christian is measured in their willingness of yielding to the will of God in and for their lives.  Obedience to God, and to His voice, will and plans, is a requirement of all Christians and the mark of obedience, is yielding. These go hand in hand and are interchangeable for good reason! Yield is an action verb, so when we yield, it's a conscious choice we are making, whether it's a free choice or a choice we have forced upon us. God is NOT in the business of forcing His will upon us but instead, He makes His will known to us, thereby allowing us the opportunity to follow Him. God allows us the opportunity to yield to Him in obedience, or to reject Him and follow His enemy, eventually paying the ultimate price of that choice. We have the free will of choice and I'd be crazy not to point out that choosing to obey is much better than choosing to reject Him and His voice! According to the Scriptures, the believer's responsibility in realizing true spirituality is again crystallized into one crucial word, "yield." 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." Obedience is saying "YES LORD" and doing what is His BEST for us. Being that yielded vessel is being a willing, obedient vessel who longs to make conscious choices by hearing His voice! In 1 Thessalonians 5:19, it simply states, "Do not quench the Spirit." The Spirit is "quenched" by any unyieldedness to the revealed will of God. It's simply saying "NO" to God, and so it is closely related to matters of the divine appointments for service. Though the Spirit may be "quenched" as well, by any resistance of the providence of God in the life. The word "quench," as when it's related to the Spirit, doesn't imply that He is extinguished, or that He withdraws.  It is the act of resisting the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't remove His presence because He has come to abide.

Our biggest motivation for yielding to the will of God shouldn't be the mere desire for victory in life, or for power, or blessing or for what can be obtained. It should be that we may live the sacrificial life which is simply living a life as Jesus Christ's life. Sacrificial doesn't literally mean painful, nor does it have to be; it's simply doing Another's will. Doing GOD'S will! Sure, there may be some pain involved along the path, but the prevailing note is our pure joy, and the blessing of the heart is a calming, knowing peace. Every child of God must definitely yield to the will of God. Every child of God must become yielded vessels but just not concerning some single issue of the daily life, but rather, on a much grander scale as an abiding attitude toward God. Apart from that, there can't be true spirituality nor a true relationship with Jesus Christ. Apart from that there is no escape from the Father's scourging hand; for He can't, and WON'T, suffer His child to live on without the priceless blessings that His love is longing to bestow upon them.

D.L Moody's life illustrated the necessity of completely yielding to God. He dropped out of school when he was 13, but yet went on to inspire students at Cambridge University in England, and founded an internationally known school and church. At one time, he once preferred to teach only children because he was uncomfortable with adults due to his lack of education. He ended up being one of the most persuasive orators of his day. While he was in England, he'd heard the evangelist Henry Varley say, "The world has yet to see what God can do through a man who is totally yielded to Him." Moody was so captivated by these words and eventually resolved to himself, "By the Grace of God, I will be that man!" He was born on a remote farm in rural Massachusetts in 1837, into a poverty-stricken home to a devout mother and alcoholic father. He became famous for conquering whole cities for Christ. He was in love with the thought of a lot of money, but later ended up changing his priorities to live in severe conditions in order that more money would be able to go for the spreading of the Gospel. Originally, he came to Chicago with the intention of becoming a wealthy businessman, but began a Sunday school in the poorest, most crime-ridden area of the city. In that needy, heart-breaking environment, he discovered that leading children to faith in Christ was more rewarding than making money. Later on, Moody would go on to hold great crusades, passionately preaching the Gospel. Newspaper writers of the time were puzzled as to how this man, whose bad grammar reflected a fourth grade education, could fill great halls with tens of thousands of people night after night. And the only answer to this puzzle for such a man is that he was a "yielded vessel" unto the Lord and the Lord used him in great ways that ONLY could be attributed to the glory of God! A yielded vessel.

Part of being, or becoming a yielded vessel is yielding one's heart! God seems to be reminding us daily to yield our hearts, our lives, our plans, our wills, our desires and our dreams to Him. Let it be our prayer that God would make us all aware of any area in our lives that hasn't been yielded to Him, and that we would obediently lay it on the altar.

Are YOU a yielded vessel?



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