Surrendering

2 Corinthians 13:11 NLT
Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.

There are thousands of self help books out there making tons of money for their authors. And then the lectures series to talk about what they wrote about. You have probably been to at least one lecture in your lifetime.

Here we have the ending thoughts as Paul closes his second letter to the church in Corinth. If we would just take the time to read and meditate on the truths stuffed into this thousand plus year old manuscript with sixty six books. Everything we need for a happy and fruitful life is right there.

But most people, believers or not, run to the bookstore to grab the latest book by their favorite author on how to be the person they want to be. We spend so much time looking for ways to get around God and do it ourselves. We even justify doing it using logic like "God gave us the brain to figure it out for ourselves."

I do not think God gave us His Word so we could use the material to write books to tell us how to become the person we want to be. All we need to know are the truths found right in our Bible. But we have to read it and then read it again and again. It is a never ending book always alive with just what we need for our walk each day.

True success comes when we surrender ourselves to Him. It happens when we give our life and our worldly desires to Him. When we do that it is easy to be joyful, grow to maturity in Him, encourage others, and live in harmony and peace with other believers. Only then will the God of Love and Peace be with us.