As a Christian it should always be our aim to yield ourselves to God.  But if we don’t yield ourselves to God then we will yield ourselves to Satan, the devil (Rom. 6:13, 16, 19).  There are no other options.  I have been showing you some of the ways we yield—either to God or Satan.

Option #1, we will say, is to God; and Option #2 is to Satan.  Notice that in each of the ways we yield, the second option under each point is an opposite or a rebellion against the first option.  And that’s how it is in life; Satan will always show us another way to keep us from God’s way.

Option #1 – We yield ourselves to Jesus.  Why?  Because we need Him, and He needs us.  We need Him to forgive our sins and to give us eternal life.  As Paul said, “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).  He needs us because we (the church) are His body, and we bear His fruit.

Yielding to Jesus begins by trusting Him—allowing Him to rule and reign in our lives.  Then we continue to yield to Him by hiding ourselves in Him (Col. 3:3), that is, by clinging to Him, by being knit together with Him, and by feeding off of Him.  Thus we yield to Him like a branch clings to and is nourished from its vine.

Option #2 – We yield to a worldly life (really a worldly death).  Yielding to Satan tears us away from Jesus like a branch is torn from the vine.  Instead of feeding on the living vine we vainly attempt to draw life from the things in the world.  But in the end we discover that what the world has to offer leads only to fear and guilt, and bondage and death.