Conditional Surrender = oxymoron

Jason West, high school pastor at Shiloh, put forth a most wonderful observation last Sunday.

We have replaced the idea/word Surrender with the word Commitment (or even Submission). The primary point of this is that anything other than Surrender is conditional and lets me stay, to some degree, in control.

When I think of the word "surrender" I think of a war-time situation in which one surrenders, is taken captive, and therein is under the Full Control of "the enemy." Surrender means I am no longer in control of what I do, why I am alive, what I get to live for, what I speak, what I eat, when I live or act, when I die.

So when I voluntarily surrender to the King God/Jesus, it is not conditional. Unless I am a (oxy)moron. Alas, it is not surrender at all but a diminution that keeps me from surrender at all.